22 August, 2005 - 11:26am

Seattle VC, Erik Benson, has posted a good summary of the ten steps we've taken to get to the "two-way web", which he starts with AOL in 1985 under "intial online infrastructure and content". Sxip is listed in step 9 "identity management federated web services".

The article builds on a previous piece of his, Web 2.0 or Something better?, regarding on the ongoing debate between Tim O'Reilly and Tim Bray on the meme Web 2.0. Erik notes that identity authentication and management particularly the identity of an individual outside of the corporate enterprise has been challenging and postulates on which approach to IAM, will succeed.

We agree with his conclusion that it will likely be the grassroots method that prevails. He states, "I'm not sure yet if its the institutionalized approach of someone like Ping Identity or the grassroots approach of the Shibboleth Project that ultimately wins, though I suspect it's the later".