Great post on TechCrunch by Michael Siegler. WebFinger from Google.

I have posted many times in my blog about identity and the uniqueness of the information shadow each of us leaves on the internet.

This is exactly what Google plans to do: link your e-mail address to your information shadow.

Today they think (WebFinger Google Code page) think about:

• – public profile data
• – pointer to identity provider (e.g. OpenID server)
• – a public key
• – other services used by that email address (e.g. Flickr, Picasa, Smugmug, Twitter, Facebook, and usernames for each)
• – a URL to an avatar
• – profile data (nickname, full name, etc)
• – whether the email address is also a JID, or explicitly declare that it’s NOT an email, and ONLY a JID, or any combination to disambiguate all the addresses that look like something@somewhere.com
• – or even a public declaration that the email address doesn’t have public metadata, but has a pointer to an endpoint that, provided authentication, will tell you some protected metadata, depending on who you authenticate as.

But to be honest, it could be anything about your information shadow.

Update on Louis Gray Blog: somebody already developed first client.

The whole thing is just starting: http://webfingerclient-dclinton.appspot.com/ 

Curious what Dave Birch has to say about this on Digital Identity Forum or Kim Cameron on Identity Blog.