Some (not so) futuristic ideas on how owning your identity could be cool

If I owned my online identity by being my own identity provider, theoretically I could choose to have a 1-to-1 relationship with brands I trust. I could cut out the middle man or Slash Daddy (as I’ve called Google and Facebook before) and have a real relationship with a companies I believe in. Think of it as “friending” brands. If they abuse my trust, I cut them off my trusted list.

There are a few brands that I’d gladly display on my blog without any compensation because I believe in them so much because they’ve changed my life for the better (Apple, Lululemon, RescueTime, WordPress off the top of my head). I’d like to display the relationships I have with trusted brands using microformats that denote them as personal sponsors (one day) or just be a fan of them.

Thinking further ahead… I could travel the web with my open identity and my trusted contacts follow me. I can already use my open id to log into plugins built with Jetpack. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for Ad Block Plus to grab my ID and replace the ads it blocks with ones from my trusted list of contacts.

Better yet, get some amazing offers from your trusted companies based on your community influence. Companies that have something real to offer wouldn’t need “spammy” targeted Facebook or Google ads, they could just ask you what you like and deliver on it.

This is all very preliminary, and I’m sure I don’t have enough expertise to be any expert on the topic, but these are some of the things I’ve been kicking around in my brain. I appreciate any insight on the topic.