Not using OpenID? Sears and Kmart are more Web 2.0 than you, thanks to JanRain

July 2, 2009

If you haven’t started to implement OpenID yet, you may be falling a bit behind the curve. You see, thanks to the efforts of Portland-based JanRain, even the good old—and I do mean old—brick and mortar companies like KMart and Sears are jumping on the OpenID bandwagon. Or, as Mike Rogoway at The Oregonian’s Silicon Forest blog put it, “Old economy stalwart Sears announced this morning that it’s adopting OpenID.”

That’s big news for JanRain and for OpenID in general. And as the de facto hub for OpenID, it’s big news for Portland, as well.

The Sears and KMart implementations are a combination of Chicago-based Viewpoints an JanRain RPX, a series of services that allows organizations to implement OpenID more quickly and easily.

Built on web 2.0 open standards including OpenID, OAuth, Portable Contacts, Activity Streams, and Microformats, and leveraging related technologies such as Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, and MySpaceID, JanRain’s RPX solution is able to deliver and sustain market leading functionality for its customers and partners. This is a rapidly evolving space where identity providers, services, and technical protocols are expanding and improving daily. By partnering with the pioneer and leader in third party authentication and profile management solutions, Viewpoints can continue to deliver best of breed capabilities to its clients now and in the future.

Given that KMart and Sears have already implemented OpenID, maybe you should get around to doing that too, don’t you think? It’s the Portland—and Silicon Forest—thing to do.

For more information on the collaboration, read the joint release from Viewpoints and JanRain. For more on the technology behind the solution, read about JanRain RPX or OpenID.