Make a Claim with OpenID on Jyte
Marshall Kirkpatrick
24 comments »
Jyte is a new service that leverages OpenID to allow users to start a discussion on any “claim” they care to make. Other users can then vote and discuss those claims. Users can give each other credibility points regarding any topic by tag. It’s a nice, full featured site that could come in handy for all kinds of different discussions. It’s more timely than ever now that OpenID is gaining more widespread support every day. The best thing about OpenID is that it allows a single sign-in across all sites the support the protocol. If you have an AOL/AIM user name, you can now use it to log in at all kinds of different sites, including Jyte.
Jyte is a nice, lightweight service with a lot of possibilities. There’s a lot of sophisticated social networking type features included. If you’re looking for a polling feature with more personal accountability and context this could be just what you’re looking for. The site is a product of Portland, Oregon’s JanRain.
You can log in to Jyte with any OpenID login, which as of last week includes AOL. I used JanRain’s MyOpenID.com service, but if you want to participate in a discussion you can also log in like this: http://openid.aol.com/
As you can see above, there’s a nice embed function. Claims can also be subscribed to by RSS. Users can make related claims and there’s a similar claim filter upon submission to decrease duplicates. Participants in Jyte discussions can be limited by group membership via the API’s “social whitelisting” feature.
Only a few things have disappointed me about the service so far. The embeddable widget appears to be very limited in the length of the claim displayed. It would also be nice if I was given the option to log in from inside the iframe widget instead of launching a new page. Finally, as you can see via the claim below, if I make a claim just for discussion I’m automatically listed as being in agreement with it. In this case, I don’t.
I think Jyte provides a good look into the cutting edge of online conversation. It may also prove useful in and of itself. Of course that’s likely only true if OpenID sees widespread use. That’s what I think - how about you?
Marshall Kirkpatrick is the Director of Content at SplashCast and will be assisting with TechCrunch while Michael Arrington travels.
OpenID is an icky concept.
questionable integrity due to potential manipulation
some kind of digg spinoff - blah
Seems like more and more Digg “2.0″ start-ups that keep trying of thumbs ups AND downs:)
-Zaid
“I think Jyte provides a good look into the cutting edge of online conversation. It may also prove useful in and of itself. Of course that’s likely only true if OpenID sees widespread use.”
I don’t see how this is correct in any way. Are you saying that this service will only be useful if OpenID takes off? I fail to see how these are logically correlated. If you don’t have an OpenID, Jyte will provide you one, problem solved.
The anti-OpenID bias here and in the comment thread shows how short our communal vision is. OpenID elitist? OpenID is a protocol. Is SMTP elitist? Is SSH elitist? That’s a purely ridiculous statement. Maybe that makes me elitist…
At the same time, protocols take time to get worked out. HTTP wasn’t perfected overnight, and OpenID is the same way. It will take some time for easy, meaningful uses for OpenID to emerge. Divorce your concepts of the protocol from the implementation. HTTP is the protocol, Firefox is the consumer implementation. OpenID’s Firefox will come, and there’s no logical reason to doubt that (especially looking at the amazing, creative community evolving around OpenID).
I’m also trying not to come across as too much of an OpenID acolyte. OpenID isn’t the be all and end all, but it is a step in the right direction in solving this huge identity problems of Web 2.0 and beyond. The FUD here is just pointless and makes this blog look noobish.
As far as entering a Jyte claim goes, anyone asserting something would have to be in agreement with it. So, in this case, to make your claim in the manner you sought, you would have to use, “OpenID isn’t just a bunch of elitist hype.”
You’re supposed to support any claim you make.
@Marshall: OpenID is anything but elitist. It’s not just that the protocol is distributed, open, and egalitarian, but the community itself has been an outside-the-establishment barbarian that has stormed the gates of Web identity and defeated complicated, academic single sign-on systems.
@David Kaye: Why is OpenID “icky”?
Marshall: you can change your vote by just clicking on the thumb’s down vote … the default is set to thumbs up … this allows you to be as finicky as you’d like …
One more thing (from the shameless self-promotion department) for the voyeurs out there:
http://jyte.com/spy
OpenID is the future of the web.
Theo,
I think you’re right.
Theo,
as for me, I don`t think so :/
just IMHO
Someone needs to make a sexier-looking and more customisable OpenID server front-end.
The sad, superficial fact of the matter is, I really like the concept of OpenID but sending my users to an ugly-looking sign up page just as I have piqued their interest enough to sign up, is not a user experience I particularly want to embrace.
The only problem I see with Jyte is that some of its users are hell bent on making a stink about the presentation of a “claim”. This will drive more people away than anything.
Rather than forcing one to make a “statement” (or “claim”), the site should also allow users to ask a “question” as well. I know I made this mistake several times, but at the same time, I forgot about the details due to my excitement about this neat site.
Other than that, I think it’s great.
OpenID won’t take off until your username ceases to be a URL - period.
Telling my mom she “already has an openid” because she uses AOL doesn’t cut it. So, she has one, what is it? how many dots and words and suffixes are in it? What’s a protocol?
I think UI implementors are going to have to paper-over the fact that OpenID depends on a URL if it’s going to gain widespread adoption. For example, you can present an AOL user with a box that says “AOL username” and a drop down that lets them say “at America Online” and they can probably log in and follow the redirects (assuming you’ve hard-coded where the AOL servers are).
But, from what I’ve seen of most sites that use OpenID, including Jyte and Magnolia, only the geeks get it, and that’s how it will stay until the user experience changes.
I don’t get it. I just give a + or - to a topic or post one myself to see what a bunch of people think of it??? Why do I need to do that or why would I want to do that? Somebody shoot me to end my web2.0 nightmare!
Seems like the same concept as Standpoint, only with OpenID.
Not really sure how this adds anything to the conversation on the internet. It is basically a forum…
Pretty nifty. I’m gonna have to join this openID movement soon.
I think a lot of people don’t understand OpenID, or they are just over thinking it…
it’s a simple but powerful system…I wish google would offer a similar service…leveraged off google accounts…
on a whole other subject…jyte is actually harmless fun…i’m guessing it might be another 10Million dollar acquisition by yahoo (like mybloglog)
thumbs up guys
OpenID won’t take off until your username ceases to be a URL - period.
If your username is anything other than a URL it is centralized. Do you like centralized systems? Go join the Microsoft CardSpace fanboys.
Clever idea, but its implementation here is terrible.
Why is it every great idea has to been ruined by cumbersome sign-ups and sign-ins and userIDs and login screens and redundant pop-up windows?
This service is useless. Webmaster will not subject their visitors to ridiculous sign-up process just to offer a cute thumbs up/down feature.
Actually, while you’re listed as agreeing with your claim by default, you may immediately change your vote to disagreement by clicking on the other side.
@Randy - OpenID is about eliminating redundant and multifarious sign-in processes. Any site implementing it doesn’t have to worry about the sign-in process at all; all the authentication is the responsibility of the user’s OpenID provider.
@Josh - What Jyte adds, and what the poster neglected to mention, is a multi-dimensional “cred” system for managing the credibility of the user base. You can (eventually) sort claims by not only who made them or their interests, but by how credible the claimant was. This allows weighted opinion aggregation, and could be useful in a number of other contexts. Remember, once I have an OpenID, I can take it with me anywhere OpenID is accepted, meaning my reputation on one network can be accepted somewhere else.
@Tom - There’s nothing to prevent a site from having a little icon next to the OpenID sign-in box asking for an AOL screen name. It could then (using a published url-map) send the OpenID verification request to AOL (along with the user) who would input her password, and be sent right back to the site. There’s no need to learn anything, and no new password to remember, which is a good thing for AOL users.
If your username is anything other than a URL it is centralized. Do you like centralized systems? Go join the Microsoft CardSpace fanboys.
I’m not saying OpenID is bad, or that it’s architecture is bad, I’m simply saying that the current presentation of it will not take off.
The only way to use OpenID in a “decentralized” way is if you own your own domain. There, you’ve just eliminated hundreds of millions of people from having the benefits of a decentralized login. Gone.
So, for all of THOSE people, assuming they technical enough to be comfortable putting in a URL for a username, the URL is going to be someone else’s domain. (Like AOL’s or Myopenid.com’s). That’s totally centralized.
So… I’m saying that since most people are going to be using a *centralized OpenID*, you might as well not force them to use a URL for their username, since that only further limits the number of people who will actually use it.
Users do not need to type the “http://” when logging in with openid. “user.aol.com” is surely not much harder for a user to figure out how to use than “user@aol.com”.
OpenID could use a usability audit though. Even though I support open standards, most of them are not really usable for the average clueless user.
Which is why a Microsoft passport service is in use at a lot of websites. But it doesn’t advertise passport primarily, it says, “got a hotmail account? sign in!”. The wording is different. It sure doesn’t say, “hey, please prepend your aol username to this url and write http:// in front of it”. Just not sexy.
Or look at Google, “sign in using your gmail account”.
In general I am in favour of all systems which use open APIs to save the user the hassle of signing up for yet another account he will soon forget about.