As we move Sensorpedia from a limited beta (with a sneak peek) to an open beta, we have an important decision to make. We are currently evaluating multiple authentication options for Sensorpedia. Some of the options we are currently evaluating include:

• OpenID
• Google Friend Connect
• Facebook Connect
• Twitter oAuth

Each of these options has pros and cons. We need to consider both technical issues (ease of implementation, robustness, networking/firewall limitations) and functionality (features, user base, flexibility). Our original plan for Sensorpedia was to simply use OpenID to offload the authentication process by supporting a number of (all?) OpenID providers. That is valuable in and of itself, but we’d still have to develop and maintain all social networking functionality ourselves. That certainly offers a lot of flexibility, but it’s hard to ignore the benefits one gains from leveraging the existing social networking capabilities of APIs from companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Each of these company’s offerings have some real strengths. Google Friend Connect is easy to use and has a wide variety of widgets available. It also doesn’t tie you to a specific social network. Facebook Connect is attractive because of its size (currently 300+ million users!) and you immediately get the benefit of users’ existing social graphs for sharing and managing groups for access control requirements. Twitter is also nice because of its popularity, asymmetrical connections, and because it’s used more for non-personal communication (which probably fits Sensorpedia’s user base better). The situation is further complicated now that Google and Facebook both support OpenID and Facebook even allows you to log in with your GMail credentials.

So which path should we take? We need a solution that we can implement quickly and also gives our users the greatest set of features for sharing information, managing their social graph, and supporting data mashups. We also want to keep in mind the desire to open source the Sensorpedia software and make it available to run within an enterprise and on secure networks. (Think Wikipedia / Intellipedia.) Would the social networking functionality provided by Google, Facebook, or Twitter have to be reimplemented anyway for such scenarios? These are all issues that we are discussing internally on the Sensorpedia team. We’d love to get your input as well. Please share your thoughts in the comments or get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIN.

As we move forward in this area, we’ll begin consolidating our discussion and documentation on the Sensorpedia Developers Wiki.

We value your input and look forward to hearing from you!