Jason Falls

The ever-present and seemingly omniscient Jeremiah Owyang has authored another report from Forrester well worth reading. “The Future of the Social Web,” was released to Forrester clients on April 27. You can purchase the report or become a client on their website.

Owyang, along with editors and co-authors Josh Bernoff, Cynthia Pflaum and Emily Bowen, essentially cover the immediate future of the social web to which businesses need to focus with regard to OpenID. The report surmises, in essence, that today’s customer and business experience is frustrating because profile information varies from site to service and beyond. OpenID platforms like Facebook Connect offer data portability for individual identities. Essentially, you log in to one network and it carries your credentials through to other networks and unifies your social footprint.

This concept is important because, as the report asserts, the social experience will become more streamlined, simple and user-friendly. Consumers will continue to count on one another for recommendations and p