With so many different services out there, how do you definitively claim certain social networking sites, blogs or other content as "yours"? This can be especially difficult if you have a common name! There are a couple of different services out there to help you with just this problem. The one that I use is called Claim ID and it is both useful and social! With this site, you can enter in all of the MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and blog accounts you have and "claim" them as your own.
Why would you want to do this? It gives you a way to exclude blogs/social sites that may have been made by someone with a name similar to (or the same as) yours - which in some cases may be necessary! Part of protecting your online privacy is protecting your online reputation. It also gives you a starting point to let folks know what it is you have done on the web. With so many of us creating so much content, it is easy to have something you have done or created fall through the cracks. This site will allow you to point people to a single page with all of the cool things you have done so that nothing gets lost.
Claim ID is pretty easy to use. Once you have set up your account, you can add links to it. When you add a link, you are given several options. You can enter the title you want to give to that link, the description that will show up, tags for it as well as classifying it either about you, not about you or some other classification that works for you, then classifying it as by you, not by you (with the option to add the author) or in some other way that works for you. You can create groups - work stuff, personal stuff, any other kind of stuff - that help you to arrange your information the way you want it.
And that is the point of this new sort of service, after all - to give you the opportunity to manage your online identity, reputation and what exactly you want to "claim" for yourself!
One final note - you will see a lot of information on OpenID at the Claim ID website. Even if you don't feel you create all that much content (which you will be surprised once you start trying to add it all in, I bet!), you can use the Claim ID service as an OpenID provider. A nice, only slightly technical, explanation of Open ID is found at openid.net. Take a look and see if it might help you with your expanding username/password combinations!
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16 comments:
Well this makes a lot of sense. I know I've had a hard time remember which password I've used at which site. And some sites apply more stringent rules to what your password needs to include (numbers, caps, punctuation).
I also like the philosophy of the Open Source group - making things easier for all of us - without having to make bucks off it.
I pretty much use the same password for everything I do so I never seem to have a problem with that. But it would be nice to kind of mark my own username or whatever.
You shouldn't use the same password for everything...so drop it like its hot.
This does make sense and is easy to use.
I'm as interested in OpenID as I am in ClaimID. Counting everything from blogs to reviews to music, I need passwords for my passwords! And with music and such created under a name completely different than my actual one, putting those works under one umbrella makes sense.
This sounds great. I have so many passwords and log-ins with all the different accounts I've set up for this year and last year's Library Learning. I tried to use my yahoo/flickr password as it is on the list as an openid that I already have but couldn't figure out to make it function for all my memberships. I will try again as my last attempt was Friday the 9th and I obviously wasn't thinking clearly as my post didn't even make it that afternoon.
I try to remember to update claimID pretty regularly. It's handy to round up all of the "stuff" out there either by me or about me. If you're interested you can see how I'm using it
http://claimid.com/bobbinewman
This is another neat option available to all of us I had no idea about. I'm not sure I want to use it, but I feel like Nikki does...I think it would be cool to claim your own unique online id....who knew? Bobbi and Robin know. Thanks guys!
This is a great idea. I have so many passwords to try to remember. This is a great way to keep it simple!! Simple is GOOD!
This will be great to use when I have the time to set it all up! I currently use four passwords only! It would be nice to expand!
What a great idea!
good way to keep them all together
This would come in handy if you have multiple sites to update and keep track of. Depending on what the site is shouldn't matter if you use the same password. With Pandora and Last FM, I wouldn't mind the same password, but for work or financial websites, I would use different ones. Then again, how safe is it to keep all your passwords in an online place?
I should have been a little more cautious and not included financial. No one should post financial passwords online. I meant that they should be different than ones that need less security.
I just can't help but wonder about the security of a site like this. What happens if someone decides they really want to take over your identity. Once they hack in here, then they have access to every account you have in your name. Or are there security measures that can prevent this from happening?
I like the idea of something to attribute content to oneself, but the fact of the matter is that I really don't have much of an online presence. I'm a digital hermit.
I too am on the wagon of simpler is better. It would be nice to have one place that I can go for the majority of my imformation.
I keep my own list of passwords elsewhere and don't want them posted anywhere online.
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