Different id’s for different sites. That’s confusing.
On a day when you visit different sites, it becomes tedious to remember the various identities that you need to possess. The three major companies for example Google, Yahoo and MSN have many services including Email, Messenger, Chat, Search, Blogs, Answers etc. There are so many other smaller or regional specific websites that ask for their own separate login and passwords. It becomes a real pain to register for an account, verify it and start accessing it. I have seen some forums, where you are not allowed to even view the threads. They want us to register to either view the forum threads or to download something from their sites. I am not complaining about any specific site. But it becomes tedious for the average user. If the site is a forum they might expect a person to register only if he / she want to post something there.
Recently I had to download some software. I couldn’t make it work. So I visited their support forums. But I couldn’t view any thread. I was asked to register to view the forum threads. I took the pain to register. And I asked about my problem and after 3 or 4 days there was none to answer. A few other people have also asked something and they had no answer. If I would have been allowed to view the empty forum, I wouldn’t have taken pains to register and verify. This is just an example. There are many sites like this.
Why don’t there be a common login id, password. So we don’t need to signup and verify ourselves again and again for different sites. Is it very hard to implement?
I happened to try the OpenID, a few days back. It was OK. But not many sites accept OpenID. Almost all the forums could accept OpenID. Maybe they could keep it as an option. Whoever doesn’t want to register could just use their open id to participate and discuss in online forums.