Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Ping.FM: a router for status updates ... with just one small problem.

There are some disadvantages to being a mid-western geek of a certain entropic state.

If something doesn't show up in my Feed stream, I don't hear of it from my peers.

Take Ping.FM - for example. It's not new, but a GR search shows none of my sources called it out (but they did mention it -- with the assumption that any reader would know what they meant).

I found mention of it in a corporate blog I track at work ...
lbenitez . Luis Benitez . Socialize Me 
"... Ping.fm allows users to update their status in the following services from any of the following clients...".
So Ping.fm will update my status on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Great! Just what I've been looking for.

Except ...

Ping.fm needs my username and password for each of these accounts.

Riiigggghhhht.

Ok, that's a FAIL.

Maybe that's why no-one I read is keen on Ping.FM.

I'll check back if they're able to implement on OpenID mutual authentication framework.

Update 9/14/10: A relevant xkcd comic.

1 comment:

Luis Benitez said...

How about a desktop client that has all your credentials (or properly authorized via OAuth and/or FBConnect). Would that be better ?