Johannes Ernst recently posted blog entry titled Why We Don’t Need an “Identity Selector”. Both the title and the content require a response.
Your post leads the reader to believe two things that make your position dead wrong. First is that you completely mislead the reader to believe that the selector is only used to “login” to a web site. Secondly, you lead the reader to believe that the selector is a browser feature that controls login and the login ceremony. Both of these threads create confusion and are simply inaccurate. Let me address them in reverse order.
Point Number 2. Browser vs. OS
The identity selector is an operating system thing, it is not a native browser thing. Access to the selector from the browser–at least for today–is only accessed from a plugin or extension in the browser. (In the future, selector access will be built in to browsers). All of the selector ceremony issues Johannes brings up is because the browser developers are still so clueless about what to do with identity and the selector. The browser people–like you Johannes–keep thinking identity and the selector are about login or authentication.
All of the things Johannes requests are not just about the selector, but how the browser deals with presenting selector information. As soon as the browser people wake up and get their identity junk together, this will be resolved for logging in.
Only a teenie weenie bit of the selector is about login. Let’s put login aside for this discussion. I repeat, NONE of the following information is about authenticating or logging in.
However, what Johannes is asking for is almost impossible to do without a selector or some client-based identity solution.
Point Number 1. Cookies vs. Selectors
Having set aside authentication for this discussion, let’s go down another more important track. The track is understanding the distinction between two identity models. The old legacy identity model is the cookie-based model. The new identity model is the selector-based model.
Think about it this way.
Permissioning a browser to use cookies is a way that the user allows a web site to track when his or her machine–not the person but the machine–arrives at the web site. When that person goes to another location a new cookie is issued and the other cookie becomes irrelevant for the new location. These cookies and web sites do not know about each other. A cookie-based identity model is low-level, machine-based, single-domain, and location-centric. Cookies work for a location-centric web.
Permissioning a selector with information cards is a way the user allows web sites, and web site independent applications to track the relationships and context of the person at that web site, and any other web site and any other relevant data for that moment. In contrast to the cookie-based model, a selector-based identity-model is high-level, person-centric, cross-domain, and purpose-centric. Selector’s introduce a purpose-centric web.
In other words, cookies indicate when one machine shows up to one location for the period of one session. This is relatively useful when you (not really you, the cookie knows nothing of “you” it only knows your computer) is using the browser to go a single specific location for a specific period of time.
Selectors can be used to indicate what a person is doing and what that person may want to accomplish across multiple web sites over any period of time. This is incredibly useful when you shift from “going” to a specific location to “accomplish” a purpose. Location becomes a completely different thing in the context of purpose-centric browsing. But I will save that discussion for later this week at the Impact developers conference.
The contrast of benefits between the cookie-based model and the selector-based model is so big, it is a little difficult to describe and get your arms around.
However, at this point, I want to remind you to know that it is not about logging in or registering.
Viewing things from the selector-model in contrast to the cookie model, Johannes’s graphic misses the point.
If you look at the selector strictly from an authentication view, you will continue to miss the point of the real long term value of Identity and the selector. I will return to show how important identity is for login, but it is not the main thrust.
To understand more about where I am going with this, read Phil Windley’s “The Forgotten Edge: Building a Purpose-centric Web.” You can also read my essay on “The Inverted Pyramid–Change Under the Radar.”