Two weeks ago the idlasso server went down due to a slicehost outage. As the site is no longer under active development or barely used at all (even by the creators) it seems an apt time to shut it down.
5ft Shelf is the founders new project. Check it out.
I’ve just pushed out some changes that make creating a new card/changing the design of an existing card much easier. I was never really happy with the way it worked before so have been working on a few potential solutions the last two weeks. The one I’ve gone for (shown left) lets you choose a card from a set of images to preview how the card would look for you. In many ways its quite similar to the way the wordpress themer works. Dynamic changing of any feeds on the card is also possible so you can see how it would look with different (or no) feeds.
I’ve not really had any bug reports for the last few weeks so are going to speed up the rate of beta invites now. Whilst this is going on I’m going to be battling down the supported account list so that more accounts can be verified. And then, hopefully, it won’t be too long till a proper launch.
We’ve just added support for a facebook application. To add a ‘My Identities’ box to your facebook profile just create a new card in idlasso and choose the facebook option.
The facebook application will also publish to your news feed when you add a new account. This is the first of what will hopefully be proper integration into many social networks.
Just a quick post to say we’ve added verification support for MySpace and revamped the custom account feature. You can now upload a logo for a custom account and the system automatically finds a small icon by using the sites favourite icon. Additionally you can specify a feed URL and if you select the correct type feed type (for example photo) then these photos will be available on cards that supports photos.
Hopefully this will make custom accounts easier to use and as powerful as the native account types!
When we presented at Barcamp Sheffield the most requested feature in the Q&A at the end was for OpenID delegation. The principle of OpenID delegation is that if you ever wanted/needed to change your OpenID URL going round all your web accounts and changing the URL would be a real pain. As such you can use another location as your OpenID URL which simply refers to your current OpenID account through a HTML meta tag. Then if you decided to change your OpenID provider you simply have to change the URL in one place. It’s a neat idea and is already become increasingly popular as the number of OpenID providers grows.
With idlasso you can set or change your OpenID URL on the user details page (as shown in the screenshot). Your default card at http://yourusername.idlasso.com will then do OpenID delegation for you. This is also really neat as your initial OpenID page acts as a profile with all your web accounts, rather than some standard profile page with just a name.
By popular demand I’m going to write articles on how to use some of idlasso’s more advanced features, starting this week with search.
idlasso has a comprehensive search mechanism. You can search by:
The syntax for the last option is the service name followed by a colon, followed by the username to search for on that service. You can find a list of service names we support and the string to use on our supported accounts page. Medium-Long term this will provide great opportunities for building browser plugins around the idlasso search engine – for example a plugin that detects when you are viewing a flickr profile that has been registered on idlasso. This could then display the users card so you can quickly navigate to their other web accounts or contact them.
idlasso also provides a series of finer controls over how you appear in search results. Firstly you can turn search for your profile on or off by going to your account settings page. If off this will stop you occurring in any search results as well as the user directory. If turned on it uses a sensible default of only exposing your username and real name to the public. All you other remaining information is only searchable by friends. This works really well as your friends can find more information on you whereas random internet surfers can’t.
Secondly you can fine control the search even more by using the search permission links on the manage accounts, manage resources and user details pages. This will allow you to choose public, private or friends access rights for each bit of data (see screenshot). Although the defaults work well for most users you may want to expose some of your accounts to the public or keep some private from search. This option allows you to do this.
So the idlasso search provides many ways for you to find users and many ways to control how you appear in the results. One final note is it can take upto 24 hours for any changes to appear in the search engine, but if you’re desperate to have it immediately you can turn search off for your profile and then turn it on again.
I’m not sure where in the world is having a few network issues but we’ve noticed requests to myopenid.com and AIM instant messaging are timing out (as of 11am, UK time). So if you are trying to register with openid or add an AIM account please be patient! In the meantime I’ll make sure we get some more useful error messages into the application!
I’m glad to report the closed beta is going well and I’m going to roll out some more accounts in the next few days. In the meantime I’ve added account verification and friend import support for Bebo, Digg and Pownce
Back in June 2006 myself and Andy had a series of email exchanges regarding an idea to aggregate all our profiles into one place. We bounced the idea around a bit and started work in October on what was then called meecard.com From October to March was a hard 6 months, I spent most evenings and a lot of time at weekends banging out code. We made lots of mistakes and I learnt a lot, both at a business and personal level.
By May we were almost ready and took our product to a barcamp event in Sheffield. We were primarily after the publicity but were also there to enter the best new startup competition. The standard was high but we presented well and were lucky enough to walk away with first prize and a £1000 cheque. The money paid for a graphics guy to make the website look good, the biggest problem we faced so far.
Now would be a good time to point out some practicalities. Myself and Andy were working remotely, rarely saw each other (as there was over 400 miles between us) and lead different lifestyles. Communication was always going to be an issue. Given the challenges I think we did rather well, we just disagreed slightly on where we wanted to take the company.
By now I was burnt out, we still hadn’t fully agreed on our strategy and we sort of ambled towards the future of web apps conference. We had made some improvements, added new features and arrived at the conference lucky enough to have a free stand. We got a lot of publicity and let 50 people into the system to test it out. Word started to spread, but we didn’t launch properly.
Around that time I used to work for IBM but had decided it was time to move on and started looking at new jobs. By the end of October I had resigned and spent the next month going back and forward to London trying to find accommodation, a small nightmare for anyone unlucky enough to have to do this!
As 2008 arrived I was thinking about the project a lot and so was Andy. We still hadn’t managed to release and it was frustrating me a lot. It was at this point we decided to go our own separate ways. We agreed that I would take the technology (of which I developed the most) and Andy the brand (of which he developed the most). The parting was quite amicable and we still talk regularly about various business ventures (honest!). Consequently I renamed the meecard technology to idlasso and after two months of rebranding and bug fixing I present it here almost ready to be rolled out.
At this point I should spare a moment for Andy. I’ve spent a lot of time working with him over the last year and he’s a fantastic guy, a talented programmer and a great business strategist. His current home is Productive Firefox where he is producing some great productivity tools, so be sure to check it out if you like GTD or spend too much time on facebook.
If all goes well I’ll send out the first invites on Thursday. It’s a bit rough round the edges in places but nevertheless it is finally released. I look forward to hearing what you think!
Oh and this project forms part of a bigger idea I’m working on – that of becoming my own boss. You can follow the progress at asmallrisk.com
This blog will track announcements related to idlasso.com. Its been a long journey getting here and we’re very excited about the functionality offered by the site. I say a long journey as there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes that has held the project up. We’ve been in contact with a lot of people over the last year who have been very enthusiastic about the project so we think it’s only fair to let them know exactly what has happened. We’ll post the story on this blog before we launch so keep checking back!
Right now we’re just making the finishing touches and will be rolling out the first beta invites in the next few weeks.
idlasso weblog 
