There are so many different sites on the Internet, many of which have their own login ID. So it makes sense that some sites are starting to allow you to sign in without using their login system, and relying on someone else's instead.

You could make the assumption that a lot of people have a Facebook account. So if you provide a Facebook login, a lot of people will use that to sign in. No need to create a new account. Great!

But what about the people who don't use Facebook? Well, you could provide a local login to be sure that you're not forcing everyone to use one site, but you may want to consider other login providers too. Facebook, Google, MySpace, Twitter, Windows Live...

Implementing each of these login providers could be a lengthy task. If any of the sites change their system, you'll have to change your site, too. Not great.

That's where RPX comes in.

This is a service I've been using for a project at work, and it's made life really easy for me. We wanted to allow a few of the main login providers, including Facebook, Google and Windows Live. It took a little bit of time to write a script that handles the login process, and what the site should do once you've logged in successfully. But this wasn't a huge task, and it certainly took less time than it would to implement each login one by one.

There's a free version available that allows you to give visitors a few ways to login to your site; the Plus and Pro plans provide additional functionality. For my work project we're using Pro, but the Basic plan is still a decent option for smaller sites.

I've heard that there are plugins for a few of the content management systems out there, but unless that's the case for your platform, this isn't something that users would implement. It requires a developer to set it up. However, if you're thinking about setting up a site and you need a developer, RPX is worth considering for the login process.

(Note: this is not a paid post. It's just a summary of my experience!)

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