Online Identity

Facebook LogoToday shows the need for online identity.

At 00:01 (US EDT) Facebook began allowing people to choose their own “vanity” URL for represent their accounts on Facebook.com. Facebook served and completed 500,000 requests in just 15 minutes.

Being a web guy, of course I got mine at 00:01

If you’re reading this post and had not already chosen your own “vanity” URL, you may be out of luck. Unless your name(s) or desired Username is very unusual.

I truly believe the traditional business cards as we know it is on its way out. We will be using online identities in the present and near future.

I already have online identities at quite a few web properties, the following are just some of the most famous ones:

Twitter logo YouTube logoFlickr logoFriendfeed logo

Additionally I have my own domain Vinko.com and a Google Profile.

What do all these identities mean. I believe eventually we will choose one identity to become our permanent online identity, where we use it to identify ourselves on any web site.

In the past, such technology/program/standard was established but unfortunately it was not widely adopted by web sites owners. At least not until mid 2008 where OpenID and OAuth became two standards many want-to-be identity web sites started to adapt. Facebook came up with Facebook Connect, Google proposed Google Friends Connect, and Twitter with Sign in with Twitter. Google’s and Facebook’s are OpenID implementations, where Twitter’s is an OAuth implementation, with Google saying they will adapt a combination of OpenID and OAuth eventually, making their identity portable on most web services.

Adapting OpenID or OAuth is not something new, but adaption but major “social” networks is. All these are moves in the right direction.

Have you reserved your identity yet?

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