This summer MySpace announced that it would implement OpenID and a number of new user data hooks for developers to build mashups with. That announcement was made in July and there’s been no MySpace OpenID seen in the wild…until now.
As pointed out by intrepid explorer of the interwebs Chris Messina, there’s now live code for OpenID authentication inside every MySpace user’s profile. View the source on yours and you’ll see it. This should be more than just single sign-on, too.
According to John McCrea’s live-blogged coverage of the much needed OpenID/OAuth UX Summit this weekend, MySpace has some interesting plans up its big, teenaged sleeve. There Max Engel, MySpace’s Product Manager of “Data Availability” said that the company will support OpenID, OAuth, and a hybrid of the two. They will use a pop-up iframe that allows the user to stay in context.
Does that imply that there will be OpenID and OAuth logins on MySpace for use with other OpenID providers’ accounts? Or only that MySpace will give the world an iFrame the rest of us can use to login using our MySpace ID as an OpenID? Probably the latter, but maybe the former!
Either way, really, this is great news. Facebook Connect is making it easy for 3rd party websites to tie their users to Facebook authentication and friends lists, but MySpace has the opportunity to reach a different constituency and raise the bar on both how much user data is exposed to developer and how well it’s protected for privacy-minded users.
We hope that the addition of OpenID code to MySpace profiles means we can see something exciting and new in production soon.
