VeriSign Archive

The OpenID Foundation is announcing that today Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo! are joining the Foundation as the first corporate board members. This is a great step forward in the adoption of OpenID across the Web.

The OpenID Foundation was formed in June 2007 to support and promote the technology developed by the OpenID community. Members includes individuals, students, non-profits, startups and industry giants that have come together to develop and promote open identity management on the Web.

The OpenID Foundation also released some stats related to adoption and usage. More than 10,000 Web sites support OpenID log-ins, and an estimated 350 million OpenID enabled URLs currently exist.

I continue to stand firm that what OpenID needs is marketing more than technology. Yahoo’s implementation of YahooID last week is a good move towards adoption of OpenID across the Web.

Update: Mike Arrington notes that everyone wants to be a provider to "own" the user. This is a good point and certainly a reason why these big names are joining up quickly. First one in the pool wins!

So who will be next to signup? Facebook? MySpace? Fox Interactive? IAC? I am guessing this will now move as the DataPortability group is moving forward in terms of corporate registrations.

Check out all of our video coverage of the Internet Identity Workshop last year.