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2008 has been a fairly interesting year in the realm of single sign-on services. Every tech person's favourite method of signing into multiple sites with the same service, OpenID, has seen a lot of corporate adoption throughout the social internet. And not too long ago, Facebook unveiled its Facebook Connect service, letting you access a number of sites with your Facebook details.

If things continue the way they are, this time next year nobody will know what OpenID is (or was).

The reason I say this is because there's currently more focus by OpenID developers and providers about the technology of the system, and not enough on educating users and maintaining mindshare. While OpenID is mysterious and potentially scary for those who don't understand it, practically everyone on the internet can pick up on the idea of "log in with Facebook" when they want to start using a new service, or post comments on a blog, etc.

My warning to OpenID people: Talk to your users! Let them know why OpenID exists, and how to use it, and why it's good for them. Don't talk about how it works, or what neat tricks it uses. Just show them what it does for them and how it makes their life simpler. Otherwise, 2009 might see you guys lose to Facebook. And I don't want that.

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