WordPress.com+OpenID — some ideas

A little over a month ago, wordpress.com announced their OpenID provider support.

Since then, there has been some discussion about whether or not should wp.com become OpenID consumer, and what benefits wold that bring. People mainly concentrated on two things: commenting and ability to get an account on wp.com using OpenID.

I have a few more suggestions:

• Delegating. WordPress should be an OpenID provider, as should any URI provider, but they should also enable their users to use their wordpress uris with other providers.
• Collaboration. I’d like the ability to keep some of my blog posts private, or readable by small group of individuals, and they don’t have, and don’t want wp.com account. If they have OpenID account, I’d like to enable them to login to my blog and read content, or edit content, or contribute content…
• Usability. Comments were already mentioned, and I’d like to add that it would be easier to post a comment with open id, than the usual type name, email, website procedure (the openid way would only require entering a url, and clicking twice). It’s a usability thing, not a spam-fighting thing.
• Interoperability. This was mentioned multiple times, but it’s worth mentioning again. I like being able to leave comments on other blogs while I’m logged in with wordpress without having to enter my personal data manually. I should be able to do that on other blogging platforms too, using only my wordpress uri (but not without delegating); and others should be able to do that on my blog.

Hope to see some more OpenID love from WordPress team, and keep up the good work!