AOL's recent move to embrace OpenID (right behind Microsoft and the rest of world+dog) has taken the next step, with all AOL and AIM screen names becoming an OpenID URL.

With this, in one fell swoop, over 63 million new OpenID accounts have just been created.

Now, all AOL or AIM users can simply use http://openid.aol.com/screenname to log into any OpenID enabled website. For example, if your screenname is "amglasser" (which it is not, as this is my AIM screenname), you can use http://openid.aol.com/amglasser to login to ActiveAnalysis.net.

The implementation is still a little rough - Safari browser users might have issues when being redirected back from the AOL's OpenID Provider. However, considering that Google, Yahoo and AOL, as the three content giants are all trying to push into the managed identity space, AOL's adoption of a standard instead of trying to impose a new schema should be lauded as a step in the right direction.