ClaimID and OpenID
Managing one’s “digital self” is an area that isn’t talked about much, but as the number of web pages grows exponentially, it’s increasingly becoming an area that many should look at. Especially anyone (like me) who has A LOT of stuff out there.
The idea behind ClaimID is simple, collect all the websites by or about you in one central location and link to it in the signature of your e-mails or on your personal or professional website. To quote the creators of ClaimID/OpenID:
OpenID starts with the concept that anyone can identify themselves on the Internet the same way websites do-with a URI (also called a URL or web address). Since URIs are at the very core of Web architecture, they provide a solid foundation for user-centric identity.
In one case, a friend of mine who is a writer, shared the same name as an even more famous writer for a very popular magazine (Vanity Fair). Because they had both published work under the same name, it was extremely hard for people looking for information on one, not to inadvertently find information on the other. My friend decided to create a ClaimID page to combat this and collected all the articles about her, and work of hers published online into one place. Now (theoretically) when people are looking for information on just her, they will stumble upon the ClaimID page which only links to her work.
Some of the benefits include enabling only specific people to view information important to you like phone numbers, private e-mail addresses and other personal info.
You may be asking yourself why in the hell you would use ClaimID versus just creating your own website or blog that contains an “about me” page. Well the initial concept of the open source OpenID movement is to create a standard for “ownership” and “authentication” on the web…similar to the way your Diver’s License or Personal ID work in the physical world
To clarify, OpenID is what ClaimID was developed from. The OpenID community already boasts an extremely large community…AOL recently enabled all AOL users with OpenID accounts. That’s over 60million people!!!! OpenID is not another silicon valley start-up….since it’s a part of the open source community, no one owns it and no one profits from it. It’s all about adopting standards.
A link to my ClaimID
