This week Google announced the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace, its online storefront for third-party cloud applications which are integrated with Google Apps. This is exciting news for anyone who is interested in gaining wider access to business applications in the cloud.
Applications in the Google Apps Marketplace are integrated with a user's existing Google Apps account through OpenID. This eliminates any burden on the user to create and maintain different logins and passwords for each business application.
JanRain’s open source PHP and Ruby libraries and RPX solution played a key role in enabling many of the businesses launching applications in the Marketplace. One JanRain RPX customer and Google Apps Marketplace launch partner is Get Satisfaction – the provider of a social CRM platform used on over 30,000 websites today, including Zappos.com, Microsoft, Nike, Mint, Tide and Yola. According to Thor Muller, CTO of Get Satisfaction, "Our existing integration with RPX dramatically reduced the time and effort to connect our application to the Google Apps Marketplace. It made the whole process painless."
Google was one of the first providers supported by JanRain's RPX, our turnkey hosted solution for third party authentication and social publishing.
"We are happy to see JanRain's RPX solution and their open source PHP and Ruby libraries help developers integrate their cloud applications with Google Apps," said Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead for Google Enterprise. "One of our goals is to make it easier for developers to participate in the Marketplace, and JanRain is helping us achieve that goal."
We look forward to continuing to work with Google and enabling more SaaS vendors to participate in the Google Apps Marketplace through the use of RPX or our open source OpenID Libraries.
We recently moved our libraries from openidenabled.com to github.com/openid. More information will be coming in the next few weeks about this transition.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Measuring Social Media Marketing Objectives with Social Publishing
MarketingSherpa recently conducted a survey of 2,000 marketers to gauge their measurement of social media marketing objectives. The survey measured the percentage of marketers who track various metrics as part of their social media marketing strategy. Results are charted below (click the image to expand):
The data shows that two of the most important and germane objectives for marketers as part of their social media marketing strategy are:
Such functionality is helping our customers extend their brand on the social networks, increase awareness, and generate referral traffic back to their websites. Customers using RPX social publishing are reporting an average of anywhere from 6 to 20 new referral visitors from each social activity a user publishes from their site to a social network.

Implementing social publishing as part of a social media strategy is only part of the equation - metrics must be put in place to measure return on investment. The analytics built into RPX helps marketers make better decisions as they work toward increasing website traffic and brand/product awareness.
- 94% target increase in website traffic
- 93% target increase in brand or product awareness
Such functionality is helping our customers extend their brand on the social networks, increase awareness, and generate referral traffic back to their websites. Customers using RPX social publishing are reporting an average of anywhere from 6 to 20 new referral visitors from each social activity a user publishes from their site to a social network.
Implementing social publishing as part of a social media strategy is only part of the equation - metrics must be put in place to measure return on investment. The analytics built into RPX helps marketers make better decisions as they work toward increasing website traffic and brand/product awareness.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
RPX Incorporates New Yahoo! Create Consumer Key API
Yahoo! announced the availability today of a new feature on the Yahoo! Developer Network called the Create Consumer Key API. Through our partnership with Yahoo!, JanRain has been working closely with them to ensure that our customers will be able to take advantage of this new feature when they configure Yahoo! as a provider in the RPX sign-in interface.

The Create Consumer Key (CCK) API allows developers to easily provide Yahoo!-issued Consumer Keys, Consumer Secrets, and Application IDs (collectively referred to as Yahoo! Information to their users. Many developers who use Yahoo! Web services and APIs distribute applications that enable their users to tap into Yahoo! user data (with user permission). In these cases, both the developer and each of their end-users signs up for a distinct OAuth Consumer Key. The Consumer Key ensures that the right data, for the right user, is going to the right developer.
To learn more about the CCK API, visit the Yahoo! blog. We are pleased to be able to offer a new streamlined flow for provisioning Yahoo! as a supported provider in the RPX widget.

The Create Consumer Key (CCK) API allows developers to easily provide Yahoo!-issued Consumer Keys, Consumer Secrets, and Application IDs (collectively referred to as Yahoo! Information to their users. Many developers who use Yahoo! Web services and APIs distribute applications that enable their users to tap into Yahoo! user data (with user permission). In these cases, both the developer and each of their end-users signs up for a distinct OAuth Consumer Key. The Consumer Key ensures that the right data, for the right user, is going to the right developer.
To learn more about the CCK API, visit the Yahoo! blog. We are pleased to be able to offer a new streamlined flow for provisioning Yahoo! as a supported provider in the RPX widget.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sears OpenID UX Summit Retrospective
Last Thursday over 60 OpenID advocates met at Sears World Headquarters in Chicago for a full day of discussions on progress to date and future plans for OpenID deployment and utilization. There is a summary of the event on the OpenID Foundation wiki. See Twitter coverage of the event with the hash tag #openidux
Who Attended:
Companies represented included Sears, NPR, PBS, AARP, MTV, Fox News, Universal Music Group, Kodak, Tribune Interactive, White Pages, OpenTable, Scout24/Deutsche Telecom, GameStop, Bank of America, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, JanRain, Exact Target, Ping Identity, and others.
Updates from the Identity Providers:
The session kicked off with presentations by Google (Joseph Smarr), Yahoo (Allen Tom), Microsoft (Angus Logan), Facebook (David Recordon), PayPal (Andrew Nash), and AOL (George Fletcher). Copies of many of the presentations are available on the OpenID Foundation wiki. Some key highlights from these sessions:
Some History and Recommendations:
JanRain:
After the updates from the Identity Providers, Brian Ellin, Product Manager at JanRain, chronicled the evolution of OpenID UX. Brian made a number of recommendations to RPs looking to drive adoption and usage of OpenID registration and login:

By implementing these recommendations, Blink182.com saw that 60% of users opted for 3rd party registration over the legacy username/password option. Through a finely tuned implementation that evolved through iterative testing, Universal Music Group's Lady Gaga website was able to achieve an astounding 89% 3rd party login preference over the traditional username/password option.

"Voice of the Customer" - Input from Website Operators
Next up were Daniel Jacobson from NPR, Rob Harles from Sears, and Jonathan Coffman from PBS representing the "voice of the customer."
National Public Radio (NPR):
Daniel Jacobson, Director of Application Development at NPR, was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and as the Chairman of the Adoption Committee. He reported on goals and priorities of the Adoption Committee for the upcoming year. Daniel’s vision behind these goals is to help position OpenID as a product that will make it easier for website operators to implement while providing a better user experience for the end users. The top priorities supporting this vision include:
Daniel also described the research that NPR has been doing with OpenID and that their "end game" is shared identities across all public media. They are currently collaborating with PBS and the OpenID Foundation to determine the next steps in their identity sharing strategy.
Sears:
Rob Harles, VP Social Media and Community at Sears Holdings Company, presented a summary of Sears recent deployment on the MySears and MyKmart communities as well as their plans to roll out across all the Sears websites. Rob was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and serves as the Chairman of the Online Retailer Committee.
Rob reported that Sears has one of the fastest growing retail communities, with 400% growth in 2009. They deployed JanRain's RPX integrated into the Viewpoints community platform to accept third party registration and login from Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MySpace, AOL, Twitter, Windows LiveID, and general OpenID accounts.

Additionally they surveyed their members to find out what drives interest in 3rd party login. The top two motivators were login convenience and the desire to not have to set up yet another username & password for a new account. When asked what would further improve user experience, the top two requests were the ability to share content and photos with friends.
Rob described their objectives as a combination of serving their existing customers better while also reaching out to a broader demographic than their traditional 35 to 53 year old female segment. He said that accepting registrations from a wide variety of identity providers definitely helped to expand their demographic reach.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS):
Jonathan Coffman, Social Media Strategist and Product Manager at PBS, was also recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and serves on the Adoption Committee. PBS has launched an OpenID service for use across PBS websites.
Next steps for PBS include:
Best Practices and Data Management
Finally, Allen Tom reviewed some best practices including account recovery/reset, attaching multiple identifiers, mobile authentication, and using WebFinger. Joseph Smarr discussed data management including updates on SREG, AX, OAuth, WRAP, Portable Contacts, and Activity Streams. Joseph acknowledged that there are a lot of moving parts and that things are changing quickly, so organizations who don't have sufficient internal resources or expertise might want to consider outsourcing to a solution provider like JanRain.
What was especially memorable for this event was the active involvement, questions, and recommendations from existing and prospective OPs. Representatives from Sears, NPR, PBS, AARP, MTV, Fox News, Universal Music Group, Kodak, Tribune Interactive, White Pages, Scout24/Deutsche Telecom, and GameStop provided lots of constructive feedback for the OpenID Foundation and the Identity Providers.
Thanks to the Sponsors:
Many thanks to Sears for hosting the event, Google for providing video conference access from DC and Mt. View, and to all the participants who braved the Chicago weather and airport challenges to attend this exceptional event.
Who Attended:
Companies represented included Sears, NPR, PBS, AARP, MTV, Fox News, Universal Music Group, Kodak, Tribune Interactive, White Pages, OpenTable, Scout24/Deutsche Telecom, GameStop, Bank of America, Yahoo, Google, AOL, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, JanRain, Exact Target, Ping Identity, and others.
Updates from the Identity Providers:
The session kicked off with presentations by Google (Joseph Smarr), Yahoo (Allen Tom), Microsoft (Angus Logan), Facebook (David Recordon), PayPal (Andrew Nash), and AOL (George Fletcher). Copies of many of the presentations are available on the OpenID Foundation wiki. Some key highlights from these sessions:
- Google is working on providing more API access to its OpenID Services, including Buzz, Portable Contacts, Activity Streams, OAuth WRAP, etc. Their OpenID service will also be certified by the newly formed Open Identity Exchange (OIX) for use on federal government websites.
- Yahoo has deployed an OpenID/OAuth hybrid deployment model for access control to Yahoo data and APIs including Contacts (address book), Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Updates (Activity Streams). Allen went through a case study of how Yahoo OpenID and OAuth services are being used on Huffington Post and the many benefits to users of this experience. Allen described how Yahoo Updates allows posting back to 300M Yahoo homepage, 300M Yahoo Mail, 90M Yahoo Messenger, and 40M MyYahoo accounts.
- Microsoft reported that they have over 500 million active users across Windows LiveID, Bing, Xbox, HotMail, Messenger, MSN, and Office. They continue to making process in providing 'standards' based access to user data and services. Angus described how Windows LiveID is currently being used across Windows Live and Xbox. He also discussed MS' active involvement in OAuth/WRAP, Portable Contacts, OWF, and Activity Stream initiatives.
- PayPal described their work with the federal government in launching an OpenID service for federal websites. Consumer policy and permissioning mechanism based on the UMA model will be integrated into the IDP operation. They are currently working with a limited number of "white listed" commercial websites for deployment of their OpenID services. Organizations wishing to discuss acceptance of PayPal OpenID on their websites are encouraged to contact Andrew Nash.
- Facebook discussed the widespread adoption of Facebook Connect and how they have been accepting OpenID for logins for the past year. They continued to share user experience learnings from building Connect and stressed the importance of developer simplicity around OpenID this year. David demonstrated a killer multimedia demo where a video feed dynamically consumed and displayed data from Facebook profiles via Connect.
- AOL reported that they will be upgrading their OpenID Provider service to V2.0 within the next few weeks. George discussed that they are pursuing a number additional enhancements based on emerging standards like XRD and webfinger. In addition, as an existing OpenID 2.0 Relying Party, AOL continues to expand the number of properties that accept OpenIDs.
- MySpace was unable to attend due to some last minute scheduling conflicts. Monica Keller, formerly an OpenID Advocate at MySpace has recently transitioned to Facebook and is now working with David Recordon on open standards initiatives.
Some History and Recommendations:
JanRain:
After the updates from the Identity Providers, Brian Ellin, Product Manager at JanRain, chronicled the evolution of OpenID UX. Brian made a number of recommendations to RPs looking to drive adoption and usage of OpenID registration and login:
- Simplify the login and registration flow - rethink the process and optimize it for a third party approach, don't just bolt it onto your existing page
- Avoid lengthy registration forms. Engage quickly, progressively ask for data as needed. Import SREG, AX, and/or OAuth data where possible to pre-populate registration forms.
- Remember user preferences and present only the preferred ID provider upon return visits.
- Consider a branded button-driven interface, select the ID providers that are most relevant for your user base.
- Queue the users right at the register/login link with favicons or other visual images and text that makes it clear that they can use existing accounts instead of having to create an entirely new account.
- Placement of elements of the workflow on the webpage can impact adoption and usage
- Consider combining registration and login into one integrated service
- Use the OpenID UX extension for a pop-up interface that keeps the login process in the context of the host website - avoid the full browser redirect. Use check immediate mode when possible so user achieves a "single click login" experience.
- OpenID for mobile applications is great - less typing required, easier to import data for registration forms, no username/password to input. Don't use pop-up for mobile interface.
- Use "verified email" from ID providers when available to eliminate the 2 step email verification registration flow that results in reduced success rates.
- Use the OpenID/OAuth hybrid for access to rich user data including friends, address books, photos, etc.

By implementing these recommendations, Blink182.com saw that 60% of users opted for 3rd party registration over the legacy username/password option. Through a finely tuned implementation that evolved through iterative testing, Universal Music Group's Lady Gaga website was able to achieve an astounding 89% 3rd party login preference over the traditional username/password option.

"Voice of the Customer" - Input from Website Operators
Next up were Daniel Jacobson from NPR, Rob Harles from Sears, and Jonathan Coffman from PBS representing the "voice of the customer."
National Public Radio (NPR):
Daniel Jacobson, Director of Application Development at NPR, was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and as the Chairman of the Adoption Committee. He reported on goals and priorities of the Adoption Committee for the upcoming year. Daniel’s vision behind these goals is to help position OpenID as a product that will make it easier for website operators to implement while providing a better user experience for the end users. The top priorities supporting this vision include:
- Increased market research on the needs of RPs, OPs, and end users
- Enhancement of the open source libraries
- Marketing, education, and promotion
- Improved ability to serve non-browser-based platforms, including mobile
Daniel also described the research that NPR has been doing with OpenID and that their "end game" is shared identities across all public media. They are currently collaborating with PBS and the OpenID Foundation to determine the next steps in their identity sharing strategy.
Sears:
Rob Harles, VP Social Media and Community at Sears Holdings Company, presented a summary of Sears recent deployment on the MySears and MyKmart communities as well as their plans to roll out across all the Sears websites. Rob was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and serves as the Chairman of the Online Retailer Committee.
Rob reported that Sears has one of the fastest growing retail communities, with 400% growth in 2009. They deployed JanRain's RPX integrated into the Viewpoints community platform to accept third party registration and login from Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MySpace, AOL, Twitter, Windows LiveID, and general OpenID accounts.

Additionally they surveyed their members to find out what drives interest in 3rd party login. The top two motivators were login convenience and the desire to not have to set up yet another username & password for a new account. When asked what would further improve user experience, the top two requests were the ability to share content and photos with friends.
Rob described their objectives as a combination of serving their existing customers better while also reaching out to a broader demographic than their traditional 35 to 53 year old female segment. He said that accepting registrations from a wide variety of identity providers definitely helped to expand their demographic reach.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS):
Jonathan Coffman, Social Media Strategist and Product Manager at PBS, was also recently elected to the Board of Directors of the OpenID Foundation and serves on the Adoption Committee. PBS has launched an OpenID service for use across PBS websites.
Next steps for PBS include:
- Enhanced user profiles, including allowing RPs to store extended profile data at the OP
- Begin building out the consumer side of system, allowing users to connect with and use their 3rd party accounts across ecosystem
- PBS has teamed up with the OIDF to investigate what a Public Media Trust Framework, modeled after the US federal government trust framework, might entail
- Talking to Stations, Shows, NPR, and companies like Google and PayPal to envision a time when all of this might come together and to create a path forward.
Best Practices and Data Management
Finally, Allen Tom reviewed some best practices including account recovery/reset, attaching multiple identifiers, mobile authentication, and using WebFinger. Joseph Smarr discussed data management including updates on SREG, AX, OAuth, WRAP, Portable Contacts, and Activity Streams. Joseph acknowledged that there are a lot of moving parts and that things are changing quickly, so organizations who don't have sufficient internal resources or expertise might want to consider outsourcing to a solution provider like JanRain.
What was especially memorable for this event was the active involvement, questions, and recommendations from existing and prospective OPs. Representatives from Sears, NPR, PBS, AARP, MTV, Fox News, Universal Music Group, Kodak, Tribune Interactive, White Pages, Scout24/Deutsche Telecom, and GameStop provided lots of constructive feedback for the OpenID Foundation and the Identity Providers.
Thanks to the Sponsors:
Many thanks to Sears for hosting the event, Google for providing video conference access from DC and Mt. View, and to all the participants who braved the Chicago weather and airport challenges to attend this exceptional event.
Friday, February 12, 2010
How RPX Social Publishing Enables Word of Mouth Marketing
As the social web becomes more woven into the fabric of our online lives, there is a great opportunity for organizations to leverage social media tools that enable word of mouth marketing through their users/members. The social publishing capabilities with RPX are helping organizations unlock that value, and are being utilized by many websites to grow brand awareness and create referral traffic to their site.
FoxNews, for example, enables online readers to publish article comments to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, all through a simple interface provided through RPX:

Once published, a user's friends can view the comment from within the Facebook news feed and then easily track back to FoxNews.com to check out the article and begin engaging with the site.
Users can also share their comment from FoxNews with their Twitter followers, again with a referral link back to the specific news article:

RPX possesses flexible deployment options that enable our customers to customize the user's social publishing experience to match the needs of their site. DivineCaroline.com, an online lifestyle magazine for women, lets members easily share their article comments with friends, utilizing a simple check box to connect the user's preferred social networks:
Qype, a top business ratings & reviews site in Europe, lets members share their reviews with friends on multiple social networks, leveraging the social APIs abstracted by RPX to roll out their own interface:
By enabling users to distribute their website reviews and activities to multiple networks, Qype is extending its reach and tapping into broader social graphs.

Within the RPX dashboard, customers can gain actionable analytics to determine the total number activities published by users and measure all new referral visitors generated to the site. Customers can also track the proliferation of user-generated content from their site across the social web, helping determine the most popular publishing destinations for users, and to how many social networks such content gets shared.
As marketers continue to refine a social media strategy, they will need to leverage these types of tools to effectively promote their message to new audiences across the social networks.
FoxNews, for example, enables online readers to publish article comments to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, all through a simple interface provided through RPX:
Once published, a user's friends can view the comment from within the Facebook news feed and then easily track back to FoxNews.com to check out the article and begin engaging with the site.
RPX possesses flexible deployment options that enable our customers to customize the user's social publishing experience to match the needs of their site. DivineCaroline.com, an online lifestyle magazine for women, lets members easily share their article comments with friends, utilizing a simple check box to connect the user's preferred social networks:
Within the RPX dashboard, customers can gain actionable analytics to determine the total number activities published by users and measure all new referral visitors generated to the site. Customers can also track the proliferation of user-generated content from their site across the social web, helping determine the most popular publishing destinations for users, and to how many social networks such content gets shared.
Labels:
divinecaroline,
foxnews,
qype,
rpx,
social networks,
social publishing
Thursday, February 4, 2010
OpenID User Experience Summit at Sears
We're excited to be participating in the third OpenID User Experience Summit being co-hosted by Sears and the OpenID Foundation later this month at Sears' headquarters in Chicago. As you may recall there have been OpenID UX summits at Yahoo and Facebook in the past, but this is the first event in the Midwest and hosted by a major retailer.
You can read more about the event on the OpenID wiki.
We're especially excited that there will be nearly 50 participants in this event from organizations including:
Sears, Universal Music Group, NPR, PBS, Fox News, Tribune, Kodak, Meredith, MTV, AARP, OpenTable, Scout24/Deutsche Telekom, Whitepages.com, Republican National Committee, TwitterFeed, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, MySpace, JanRain, WetPaint, Pluck, Viewpoints, Rainbow Media, NRI, Verisign, ExactTarget, Kantara ULX WG, Echo & Data Portability Project, and others.
As with prior events, the topics being discussed were determined by the participants, so we hope this will prove to be an interesting and informative session. Here's a summary of what will be covered:
You can read more about the event on the OpenID wiki.
We're especially excited that there will be nearly 50 participants in this event from organizations including:
Sears, Universal Music Group, NPR, PBS, Fox News, Tribune, Kodak, Meredith, MTV, AARP, OpenTable, Scout24/Deutsche Telekom, Whitepages.com, Republican National Committee, TwitterFeed, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, MySpace, JanRain, WetPaint, Pluck, Viewpoints, Rainbow Media, NRI, Verisign, ExactTarget, Kantara ULX WG, Echo & Data Portability Project, and others.
As with prior events, the topics being discussed were determined by the participants, so we hope this will prove to be an interesting and informative session. Here's a summary of what will be covered:
- Update from major Identity Providers on OpenID plans for 2010: Joseph Smarr (Google), Allen Tom (Yahoo), Monica Keller (MySpace), Andrew Nash (PayPal), Angus Logan (Microsoft), David Recordon (Facebook). Tentative: George Fletcher (AOL), Nico Popp (Verisign)
- How to drive adoption & usage of OpenID and the resulting business & end user benefits: Brian Ellin (JanRain) - lessons learned over the past three years implementing OpenID
- Input from Website Operators on how UX should evolve and goals behind those suggested enhancements: Rob Harles (Sears) & Daniel Jacobson (NPR) will facilitate a discussion and generate feedback from participating RPs to the OpenID Foundation and OPs.
- User experience flows for "OpenID Connect," lessons learned from Facebook – David Recordon (Facebook)
- OpenID best practices including account recovery/reset, attaching multiple identifiers, mobile authentication, using WebFinger, etc. – Allen Tom (Yahoo)
- Data Management: update on SREG, AX, OAuth, WRAP, Portable Contacts, and Activity Streams – Joseph Smarr (formerly CTO of Plaxo, now at Google)
- Update from participating Website Operators on OpenID plans for 2010 – All RPs present who want to share some future thoughts and plans
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
LinkedIn Added to RPX
We are excited to announce today that LinkedIn has been added as a supported identity provider in RPX. You can check out LinkUp for an example site that has added LinkedIn as a sign in option. LinkUp is a fast-growing job search engine that easily configured its sign in widget to support LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has an active member base of over 50 million business professionals, and further integration with their platform is on the way for RPX. In the coming weeks, users on your website will be able to import their LinkedIn contacts, and publish their activities from your site to their LinkedIn status.
Here are a few other recent feature updates to RPX:
LinkedIn has an active member base of over 50 million business professionals, and further integration with their platform is on the way for RPX. In the coming weeks, users on your website will be able to import their LinkedIn contacts, and publish their activities from your site to their LinkedIn status.
Here are a few other recent feature updates to RPX:
- Updated Sign in Widget - We have updated the look and feel, as well as the functionality of the RPX widget. In addition, the sign in experience now occurs in a friendly pop-up browser window for all 17 identity providers supported by RPX.
- Facebook Email Support - Facebook now allows users to approve sending their email address to your website during authentication. This feature can be easily enabled from within the dashboard of your RPX application.
- New Dashboard and Setup Guide - The RPX dashboard and setup guide have been redesigned to display more information in an improved format. A simpler wizard flow has been designed to make it easier to configure your widget and select identity providers.
- Downloadable Reports - For RPX Pro customers, we now offer the ability to download sign in analytics in a .csv file. If RPX is deployed on multiple domains, customers can also see which of those domains has had the most sign in activity. The reports are accessible from within the Analytics tab of the RPX dashboard.
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