Windows Live ID SDK

The new SDK for the Windows Live ID service lets you build a platform-neutral interface to enable users who log in using Live ID to be authenticated on your site. Microsoft uses Windows Live ID as the authentication mechanism for 380 million users on a whole host of sites (Hotmail, Xbox Live, various forums and blogs, etc.). The Windows Live ID Web Authentication 1.0 SDK, provides a Quickstart application sample for each of six programming languages: ASP.NET, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby. For each language there is a function library that you can use to extend the sample. The platform independent application works on Linux as well as XP and Vista OSes.

With Windows Live ID Web Authentication, you can use the Windows Live ID service to verify the identity of visitors to your site, so that you can offer personalized access to your site’s content by the millions of registered Live ID users. Live ID provides you with a unique, site-specific identifier for each Windows Live user who signs in to your site. Web Authentication also enables you to incorporate Windows Live controls into your site.

There’s a Channel9 interview with Lynn Ayers (PM on the Windows Live ID team) talking about the new SDK and demo’ing some of the cooler features, and some good info on the Windows Live ID team blog. If you have comments or questions, try the  Windows Live ID Discussion Forum; I just had a look and it’s one forum where almost every question is answered promptly. The Windows Live ID Web Authentication 1.0 SDK documentation is available on MSDN if you want to learn more before downloading the kit.