Did you know that Time magazine has made "YOU" their Person of the Year 2006?
We’ve now entered the era where the web is providing previously unseen capabilities to the masses. The result is a myriad of new communication and information service providers and hundreds of new logins and passwords.

The growth of these silos of ‘Unmovable Identity Data’ (e.g.: usernames and passwords accounts locked into vendor silos) is being replaced with a new breed of identity-centric technologies now being called Identity 2.0.

Identity 2.0 is laying the infrastructure for what some are calling the identity big boom. Commercial pressure and identity fraud are pushing the envelope and putting greater pressure on the lagging legal and government response. Policy that drastically effects commercial, government and personal identity management is now being heatedly debated around the world with promises to effect day to day life, (hopefully for the better).

Dick Hardt coined the term Identity 2.0 on November 30th, 2004. He’s the CEO of an identity technology producing company called Sxip.  Dick has been providing entertaining and highly informative presentations on Identity 2.0 for almost two years now.  For him, the new world of identity and the way we use and work with our own day to day data will be managed by applications focused on the specific identifiers which make up the story about who we are. 

The movement towards a user centric framework is greatly due to the people at  Higgins project led by Paul Trevethick and Mary Ruddy. This Open Source technology will make previously siloed identity elements usable across all technologies.  Higgins and its project is an inspiration to the Identity Technology community and a force in the Identity 2.0 landscape to be reckoned with.

A popular website that is making waves in the identity community is www.linkedin.com, This website is working towards harnessing the power of your contacts, and using reputation to an advantage. The current success of Linkedin is a sign of the identity 2.0 times and is just the beginning of what we should expect in the near future.  One of the things these identity technologies will do for us is move toward the demise of identity theft, and identification fraud, as we know it.

Kim Cameron of Microsoft – the Grand Daddy of identity in the Technical world - says the infrastructure of what is rapidly becoming “The Identity Big Boom” is being laid in 2007.  CardSpace the Microsoft Identity platform is being launched with Windows Vista.  Vista launched in the UK Jan 30, represents a 5 year $6 billion dollar investment from Microsoft who is expecting a 100 million people in license uptake in 2007.  Companies are positioning themselves, the plans have been hatched and are in motion.

Overall the Identity 2.0 messge is that the Me(ek) will inherits the earth in 2007 and “Identification” is the way to enable people so we can make it all happen.