Sunday, February 25, 2007

ClaimID


I was browsing the internet trying to find out more on this whole Open ID stuff that I have been reading about lately. It really peaked my interest and therefore wanted to come up with a way to get my own open id. To sum it up quickly and easily, it is a way for you to have 1 username and password and use it to login in to website that support it. Right now it is fairly new and more and more website are adopting open id and will hopefully be universally accepted in the future. It is really just a simpler way to login to sites that support it. In the process of finding a way to get my own open id I came across claimID, they provide a way for you to get an open id and also manage all your openid's that you may already have. It was very easy to setup and use. That is just an extra part of their service.

The part of their service that I am really excited about is the whole reason they exist, a way to manage your online identity. Whether you like it or not most people that are active online (using iMeem, Facebook, Myspace, your own website, etc...) have an online identity. Just search for your name in various search engines and you will see everything that is associated with your name. ClaimID provides away for you to claim all those links and pages that your are really associated with in one place. Essentially it is a way for friends and family to do a search for you in Google or Yahoo and your claimid page shows up with all the links that you claim to be a part of. We have all done searches for old friends and think we have found something, but are not 100% sure, had they had a claimid page you would know for sure. (Some people may not like this but the reality is, it is pretty easy to find people and info about them online.) I will be interested to see where my claimid page shows up in search engines over the next several months.

Basically when you create a free account with them you are given a website page to list all the links that your a some way or another associated with. It is very clean looking using Ruby on Rails, very easy to use and add links via their bookmarklet. They allow you to put your own description for each link that you are created along with who authored it and whether or not it is about you or not. You can put them into groups for organiztional purposes which is very nice for those that have a lot of links.

Since I am pretty active online, not as much as some, but still quite active. I have all kinds of different sites/ profiles and I like the fact that I can have a place that brings all that together in a very nice simple webpage. I like the fact that it is easy to find me online, not that there are many people searching for me, but nonetheless it is easy. And for those that do a search for me can now know without a doubt that it is me. My claimID page isn't showing up in searches just yet, but I think it will very soon and it will simplify the question of whether or not it is me. (Update: It is showing up now in a search.) I wish I could remember where I read it to give the person credit for who said it, but they said "Eventually everyone who is online will have an web address that identifies them." ClaimID is at the forefront of where our onine identities are and provide a very simple and clean way for us to manage that identity.

My claimID page is up with links to everything that I am associated with and involved in on the web. I have "verified" everything that I can on my verified page. I plan on adding some more in my about me section on the right, but it is enough for now.

You check out my claim id page here

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