I’m currently considering to start using openID, not exactly an early adopter I know.
I have been looking around for best-practice as known and blogged so far. My conclusion from the online research is that “OpenID delegation” is a safe way to go, in case one’s OpenID Provider is shutdown say like Vox (yet another twitter-killed-the-internet case).
The thing with OpenID delegation is that it requires one to own a URL or at least control it in order to advertise the redirection to one’s openID provider of choice.
WordPress as in wordpress.com does not function as a Delegation agent (I do know that local wordpress installation will allow the headers to be modified hereby making one’s blog function as an OpenID Delegation agent).
EmailToID seems like a good solution as it does provide a level of indirection and does not require a control of an URL, However looking further into this it seems that this is/was a service offered by a company called Vidoop that, as it seems, died – largely unannounced and at some later point bought/reincarnated in another company called confident
The EmailToID service itself as of today seems to be up and running,
However I’m confused regarding what entity is currently operating the service if at all.
On top of that not wanting to go through the trouble of setting up and EmailToId account I am unable to understand if one can change one’s OpenID provider once it is set which is the whole point of redirection, this article which seems to have published circa the time that the service has been launched makes me think that it might be possible.
To me is seems that the story behind Vidoop tells not only the story behind the company rather it tells the story of the smart internet start-ups post the internet bubble era and the great black hole called Google and Facebook.
The Mouse's cradle 