Signing On Made Simple

If you have more user names and passwords than you can possibly remember, you will appreciate the appeal of the OpenID initiative. OpenID lets users access multiple sites from multiple providers with a single ID. Some of the major players that support issuing or accepting OpenIDs include AOL, Flickr, WordPress and Yahoo. Growing businesses are in a good position to become early adopters of OpenID by offering it as a login option for their site visitors. The open standard has seen steady gains in adoption and makes sense particularly for Web 2.0 startups that want to show support for the movement and provide convenience for their customers.

OpenID-enabled websites fall into three groups: OpenID providers; relying parties, which are able to accept those OpenIDs; and "full implementation websites," which both provide OpenIDs and accept them. Smaller web businesses tend to fall into the second group. Adapting your existing site to accept OpenIDs can be a job for your web developer, or you can look to a solution like that offered by OpenID services provider JanRain. Its myOpenID Affiliate Program and OpenID Website Enablement are two options that can get a website up and running quickly with OpenID.

Market Research Firm In-Stat forecasts the global mobile gaming market will exceed $6.8 billion by 2013.

This article was originally published in the January 2009 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: A Service to Simplify Sign-ons.