Flickr Services
Posted on May 1, 2006
Filed Under Innovation |
One of the things I really like about the way that Flickr provides services to third party applications is the authorization model they employ. In addition to user authentication, applications that are attempting to access a Flickr account have to be granted permission by the account holder within the account preferences, and of course Flickr is smart about the way they do this workflow in that it’s very easy to follow. The 3rd party app requests authorization, takes you to a url with the relevant data preloaded, all you do is click OK and then you are back in the 3rd party app which now knows it has been granted permission. Very smart.
The reason why this makes so much sense is that traditional security models are applied to users and roles, and not to application services which at best try to adapt the traditional security model to what users are doing with the services in question. There is a need for both models, clearly, but whatever the mix ends up being there should be a clear objective of making it as easy for users to deal with as possible. It’s not that there is someone who’s job it is to make things complex and difficult, but that is all too often what the result is and that impacts adoption in a service environment.
Technorati Tags: Flickr, security
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About
My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. These are my thoughts on technology, innovation, management, public policy and pretty much anything else that I find interesting.
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