Portable Data - Is It Good for Gen Y?

Almost any member of Gen Y can account for a dozen or more places that they are required to log-in online - their email, online banking, MySpace, etc. And in the average workplace, they might be asked to remember more disparate logins than they can count on one hand!


The last thing that we want to do is to have to remember multiple passwords, but do we really want to put all of our eggs in one basket? A new concept - OpenID is asking us to do just that. In the same way that logging into your Yahoo! email also logs you into Flickr, or logging into Blogger opens up Google, OpenID is looking to take that a step further.

If the roll-out goes through in full force, those who opt-in (assuming that it will be optional) will be able to enter their data and be logged into nearly all of their personal accounts online (except for sites with more sensitive data - such as their banks).

And to take it one step further, the real meat behind it is not to resolve the multiple login procedure, but rather to allow data to be ported from one source to another. It essentially would serve as the user's digital identity. In doing so, your likes and dislikes, photos, videos and likely many other things will able to be shared across multiple platforms. In the same way that Trillian simplified things for people on multiple IM networks (by allowing them to login to AIM, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ in one window), OpenID will make it more convenient to have a presence and communicate across multiple social networks and have a larger reach.

So it will allow users to more easily manage their social relationships across the Web, but what's the downside? Some say that security will be a risk. With all of that data moving from one place to another, it will provide more points for a user's data to be exploited from.

Who will set the standard? From the past, we already know that some companies like Amazon will sell your information - straight from their terms of service. Will OpenID or other initiatives require that this not be allowed? And who will police it?

It seems like a good idea, but until their are standards, it might not be the best idea for Gen Y. In the meantime, there are tools in place which already help manage multiple profiles, and many tech-savvy Gen Y'ers can explore them without difficulty. RSS feeds can be used to aggregate information from multiple areas into one home base, and tools such as Flock - the social media browser - allows users to more easily access and share their data, while allowing users to be in control of their own security on their own machines without worrying about other players' intentions.