Posted 4:37 PM (0) comments

Someone else wants a personal directory!

RedMonk posts about a service he'd like to see: "We could imagine that in Theory-land ... everyone’s identity and data is federated and queryable in a secure fashion." He goes on to mention two (of many) things he'd like to be able to do:

"1. I want to stop entering the same profile information over-and-over again. I probably create a user account 2-3 times a week (this morning it was Dishola.com), adding in the same email, username, picture, and “about me” info.
2. I’m sick of entering in my “friends” into every damn site I create a profile on. For social networking sites, this second item is one of those counter-intutive differentiators that most (all?) sites are missing out on."

He even thinks that OpenID might provide the answer: "OpenID has been a promising bundle of technology and standards over the past year as well. I’ve been delighted to see sites of like LiveJournal and claimID adopting OpenID and I’m waiting to see the attribute (or “profile sharing”) parts evolve and get more use by other sites."

It could, but I'm not holding my breathe. For that matter, Liberty Alliance Attribute Provider (An attribute provider (AP) provides Identity Personal Profile (ID-PP) information. Sometimes referred to as an ID-PP provider) would also fill the bill. But I'm not holding my breathe there, either.

Maybe it's time to revisit the universal, self-published, loosely-coupled Personal Directory (Part 1, 2, 3, and 4) - the time is ripe!

Labels: liberty alliance, openid, personal directory