FreeYourID

FreeYourID is a new web service that allows users to register a personal .Name domain name which in turn can be used as an OpenID identifier, website URL and email host. Your domain name will be in the format of first.last.name and the domain can then be directed to a website, host email aliases or more interestingly, be used as login credentials for services that support OpenID. For those of you unfamiliar with OpenID it’s an open standards based identity network similar to Microsoft Password that allows you to login to any website that supports the standard using the same credentials. It alleviates the problem of having multiple accounts and multiple identities at different serives and allows you to have a single unique username, password an in-turn profile. To use OpenID, your identity is stored on a trusted identity provider. Instead of logging into a site directly, you log into your identity provider, which upon your verification, shares whatever identity information you choose with the site. Currently there are a number of steps involved for a user to setup an OpenID identity, but with FreeYourID you can use your own .Name domain and have your OpenID identity setup and served automatically in a simple single-step signup process. With your OpenID enabled .Name domain setup you can then automatically login to any of the growing number of services that support the open identity protocol (for a list see here). This automation is key to helping OpenID reach a wider audience. In addition, FreeYourID will be rolling out integration with Lycos Europe and Pageflakes. Lycos will be releasing a new product, which will use .name URIs for identity across email, IM, and VOIP. Pageflakes, within a week, will be rolling out personalized .Name addresses for their users to access their accounts. FreeYourID also recently partnered with JanRain to act as their OpenID server.

OpenID

OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID starts with the concept that anyone can identify themselves on the Internet the same way websites do-with a URI (also called a URL or web address). Since URIs are at the very core of Web architecture, they provide a solid foundation for user-centric identity. The first piece of the OpenID framework is authentication -- how you prove ownership of a URI. Today, websites require usernames and passwords to login, which means that many people use the same password everywhere. With OpenID Authentication (see specs), your username is your URI, and your password (or other credentials) stays safely stored on your OpenID Provider (which you can run yourself, or use a third-party identity provider). To login to an OpenID-enabled website (even one you've never been to before), just type your OpenID URI. The website will then redirect you to your OpenID Provider to login using whatever credentials it requires. Once authenticated, your OpenID provider will send you back to the website with the necessary credentials to log you in. By using Strong Authentication where needed, the OpenID Framework can be used for all types of transactions, both extending the use of pure single-sign-on as well as the sensitivity of data shared. Beyond Authentication, the OpenID framework provides the means for users to share other components of their digital identity. By utilizing the emerging OpenID Attribute Exchange specification (see specs), users are able to clearly control what pieces of information can be shared by their Identity Provider, such as their name, address, or phone number. Today, OpenID has emerged as the de-facto user-centric identity framework allowing millions of people to interact online. With programs such as the I Want My OpenID Bounty, developers of Open Source projects are rapidly adding support for OpenID in order to enable their communities.

Undisposable

Undisposable.org allows you to outsource email validation against disposable email addressing (e.g. 10minutemail.com, mailinator.com) and fake accounts spread from the likes of bugmenot.com. Needless to say, the usage rates are very low.

Amazon S3

Amazon S3 is all about distributed storage. S3 saves you from the hassles and big costs of buying and maintaining storage hardware for your site's needs. YouOS is one example that secures its data on scalable Amazon S3 servers. You can see if a web site is using S3 or not by keeping track of your status bar while a page loads; S3 powered sites will frequently fetch data from http://aws.amazon.com address. R/WW's MyBlogLog for example uses S3.

RapLeaf

RapLeaf provides a distributed trust system for your site. What made eBay so successful was the trust system it brought into the online auction arena. Similarly, many other ventures need trust systems to make transactions between their visitors more secure. And making your trust portable across all these sites is a very bright idea - which is yet another advantage of power of masses in granular web. In the same way, outsourcing this system to a 3rd party can result in decreased development time and costs.

OpenID

OpenID is a distributed authentication mechanism. It allows you to outsource your whole authentication system to this distributed platform. This results in 2 things: You don't need to develop it on your own (decreased development time and cost) Moreover, you decrease the sign up threshold and so attract more users (Power of Masses) Sounds like a good deal, no? But the numbers are not supporting this goal. Even though OpenID is a widely covered topic in blogosphere, and is backed by big companies like VeriSign and SixApart and has many fans and the open source community behind, the adoption and usage rates have remained low.

MyFreeCopyright

My Free Copyright provides indisputable proof associating a copyright, the date of creation, the creator and his or her terms of use through the use of a digital fingerprinting process. This process incorporates a digital fingerprint, email, and transactional log, which creates a verifiable third party public date registration of the creator's copyright.