Open-Source Social Profiles

Pack and go profile

Yesterday’s news that Facebook had hired David Recordon from Six Apart got me thinking: How far are we from true profile portability? Recordon’s book on OpenID is available for pre-order on Amazon. According to his blog, the book will “take all of the OpenID knowledge and best practices that are currently spread out and unorganized around the Web and organize it so that it becomes easier to implement OpenID on your site.”

OpenID offers users a simplified site sign-in process. Remember Clear, the airport fast lane for business travelers? They read your thumbprint and, bam, you get right through security. With OpenID, you get a fast lane for site sign-in. No remembering passwords or filling out registration forms. One sign-in — that’s it.

If Facebook is hiring people who advocate this kind of technology, true profile portability can’t be far behind. Let’s call it OpenProfile, an aggregation of all our Facebook activity that goes with us as we travel the Web. An OpenProfile would get us recommendations that match our interests wherever we go online. And as long as the profile information we choose to share is a benefit to us, we will share it freely.

People might get freaked out and decide that sharing their Facebook profile with every site they visit is just too scary. So adoption could be slow. The risk is that it might be adopted too slowly, not gain enough followers, and never really take off — just like Clear. But if Facebook integrates it in a nonthreatening way, it could also be the revolution in experience design and marketing engagement that many have been hoping for.

Update Aug 27: Nice quick exchange with Dave Recordan. It looks like we’re closer to an OpenProfile than not. Dave pointed me to Federated Login for Google Account Users a combination of OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0, Open User Interface 1.0 and OpenID+OAuth Hybrid protocol and FaceBook Connect and your profile is part of your interactions—you just may not realize it.