dmv wrote:
You lose lock-in. If that's the problem, it is worth noting.

It isn't. I'm not really arguing against doing this. I'm just trying to figure out if this is really the right way.

For example, it seems like you don't really want to authenticate to this system every time. I'd prefer it handed you a cookie, and I embed a web bug from their site in my page. When you hit my site, they'll get their cookie, and the url for the image I'll link will include a hash that uniquely identifies this user/session on my site. I can then make a request to their site with that hash and get back the user details associated with the hash in an easy to parse XML file. When you go to reply to a post is automagically filled out with your details.

Soooo many sites require registration before using them; I don't even have a good ballpark on the number of web sites I have accounts on. And I'm fucking sick of it.

This is a compelling arguement.

Or is account generation so important to you that you can't imagine why someone who finds MemeStreams wouldn't make it a top destination? What is the active/unused account ratio? How many people created an account, posted one comment, and left?

Most accounts are unused by a wide margin.

Email is at least as much bullshit of an authentication method as a URL.

Certainly. I don't authenticate your email address to authenticate you. My purpose is that you can send emails out, and they come from an address, and I want to make sure that address works. Having that take care of once rather then for every site on the net would reduce the hassle associated with making accounts on sites.

RE: news: OpenID support