Most people probably know that OpenID is a fantastic way to use the same username/password to authenticate themselves on a multitude of different sites, and that many of the services they already use provide them with OpenIDs they can use to do so.

What most people don't know, however, is that OpenID provides a mechanism allowing them to use their very own URL as their login while still allowing the authentication to be handled by one of the services they already use. This is called "delegation," and will help ensure that you can change OpenID providers at any point in the future without having to change your OpenID login info.

This is kind of confusing, so let's use an example. Let's say our friend Joe has a blog at http://joesblog.com. Joe wants to start logging into new sites with an OpenID and decides that, since he already has an AIM account, he'd like to use it to log into them. Now let's say next month Google comes out with a new, more exciting OpenID system, and Joe wants to start using that. Uh-oh. Now Joe is going to have to remember which of his two OpenID accounts was used on which site. This is clearly counter to the intentions of OpenID, but the reality we now face is that picking an OpenID provider tends to get one "stuck" with it. Here's where delegation can help.

Joe can configure OpenID such that he simply logs into OpenID-aware sites with the login name "http://joesblog.com," and delegation will handle deciding which OpenID provider to ask about authentication. Joe can choose to delegate his OpenID identity to his AIM account now, and then 3 months from now change it to use his LiveJournal account. None of the sites at which he uses "http://joesblog.com" as a login will even know that anything has changed. Now that's what I call "open."

This site aims to make this process as simple as possible by asking a few questions and giving you pre-configured files to drop into place. All you need is an hosting account, an URL, and an account with an OpenID provider. If you have an account with any of the services below you've got an OpenID provider.

Ready to get started?