Colliding Continents

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

OpenID Is the Bridge

It is amazing how last night I find myself writing about Hyatt's new HyattConcierge initiative and how I felt that Web 2.0 initiatives should not be based on a single Web 2.0 platform such as Twitter (read about that here). Now in a few moments Facebook will become the biggest example of a social network site that lets users log-in using OpenID. So what does that mean exactly?

Well, OpenID has been around for a while now and essentially it allows you to use the same login info for multiple relying parties. The issue was that no one was really partnering up with anyone rendering the OpenID a not as universally usable until now. Facebook's community is so huge that sites who do not want to partner up with Facebook would be loosing out on a HUGE opportunity.

Wait wait Sebastien, I thought you were a travel blogger man!?!? Well, I am and this is where it all comes together. Imagine being a hotel and you have a Facebook page. You have say 100 fans in addition to your 100 Twitter followers (who happen to not be the same 100 fans on Facebook) and today Facebook decides to incorporate OpenID. Twitter wants to keep up so they too incorporate OpenID with Facebook as a partner.

Amongst other things, having the OpenID would allow your 100 Facebook fans to become Twitter followers and vice versa. As a hotel you think OpenID is FANTASTIC so you decide to incorporate it for yourself. One of the most amazing things about it is the fact that your 100 fans can now directly log into their online account at say Hyatt.com (for example), make a reservation AND potentially tell their friends about the reservation they made through Facebook AND invite them to join in on a great vacation at the Hyatt!

Essentially this is huge news for hotels trying to reach out to a larger client base to monetize their Web 2.0 initiatives.

Written at 11:15 AM by Sebastien.

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