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Have you ever been discouraged by a “Sign Up for free” link? Many users are. 15-20% users abandon a site rather than do the register-confirm-accept dance. Consider lowering the barrier that many users feel when asked to provide their email address to register. In this post, I discuss how you can use IDs from major providers instead of coming up with your own.

A word of caution: OpenID idea has enjoyed less than spectacular success. Still, a consensus seems to be evolving and a number of announcements this year suggest that perhaps the industry is arriving at a consensus.

A vision of the login sequence using IDs from other providers, is shown on the right.

The table below shows user counts that the UI vision above would target. They were compiled from Comscore stats for internet properties (MySpace is under Fox Interactive Media) and from a different report which zeroes in on email addresses.

A key question that remains to be asked is what are the stats for your users. Of course, you won’t know the answer to that question until you have gone live, so perhaps it is best to cast a wide net in the beginning.

Here are a few references for implementation:

1. Some background material: What is OAuth and how does it work?
2. If you want to do the programming, a recipe for OpenID 1.1 from Plaxo, instructions for using Yahoo! as an identity provider, using Google’s OAuth.
3. If you want to use a third-party solution, RPX service for OpenID 2.0 from JanRain.

Of course, this only addresses the authentication question. How your users will be given entitlements to do what they need to do, and only what they need to do, remains an implementation decision.