In talking to Matt last Friday at the Adaptive Path party, I asked him when OpenID was coming to WordPress.com — the hosted blogging service — and he replied “Monday”.
Well, a day late but hardly a dollar short, WordPress.com has added bi-directional support for OpenID.
What this means is that you can both sign in to WordPress.com using your existing OpenIDs (making WordPress.com a “consumer”) as well as use your WordPress.com URL (for example, https://factoryjoe.wordpress.com) as an OpenID elsewhere, making WordPress.com an iDP or “identity provider”.
The FAQ entry is pretty descriptive and I’d recommend you take a look at it. WordPress.com now joins a growing array of service providers offering support for this grassroots-driven authentication protocol.
No word on when OpenID will hit core of the WordPress project, but there are already two great efforts driven first by Alan Castonguay and more recently Will Norris — which point to a positive future between the two open source initiatives.
Factory Joe 
Is it really bi-directional? I don’t see the consumer support information in the FAQ there; I just see provider support. Would love to see consumer support!
cool.
i’ve been waiting for the oportunity to use my wordpresscom login as openid.
Yeah, I don’t see any way to “log into WordPress.com” using my regular OpenID either.
Shame really, since this now means that the Provider:Consumer ratio is even higher. (I personally have more OpenIDs than there are sites I can use them at, I think)
What’s up? OpenIDs now get consumed.. 🙂
OMG. I’ve mixed websites/tabs. Just ignore/delete my two comments.