Google, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo and Verisign have all become the OpenID Foundation's first corporate board members, giving a push to the seven-month-old group's ideas about portable web identities or OpenIDs and how personal information is shared online, something that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have all caught flak for.

OpenID is a free decentralized sign-on technology that eliminates the need for multiple user names across Internet sites and is supposed to give people more control over their digital identities and what exactly is shared.

There are so far 350 million OpenID-enabled URLs in existence.

Microsoft has donated legal resources to the cause.

Ulitzer, Inc., which initially made the headlines with its “job descriptions from the future,” announced today that it will launch its Ulitzer “beta” site on July 4, 2008, with 5,500 authors and 600,000 original articles, published in more than 5,000 topic-specific online journals. Each journal offers up to 14 content-specific sections, written by the world’s most-respected authors, who are experts in their particular fields. All Ulitzer authors will get paid for their contributions.

Article                            News
Blog                              Opinion
Book Excerpt                 Podcast
Book Review                  Product Review
Case Study                   Tutorial
Feedback                      Video
Interview                        White Paper

Becoming a Ulitzer author requires an invitation from an existing Ulitzer author and is subject to review and approval by Ulitzer's editorial board. New author applications are typically answered within 24 hours.

Ulitzer author main page where more than 5,500 Ulitzer authors will make it
their "article" and "blog" home the first day Ulitzer goes live later this year.

At the time of its July 4 beta launch, all 5,000 Ulitzer topics will be grouped under the category of "05) Internet, Computers & Software," which is one of 25 distinct topic categories available for Ulitzer readers.

01) Aerospace and Defense

02) Agriculture

03) Automotive

04) Chemicals

05) Internet, Computers & Software

06) Education and Training

07) Electronics and Semiconductors

08) Energy and Utilities

09) Environment

10) Financial Services

11) Food and Beverage

12) Government

13) Lifestyle and Leisure

14) Manufacturing and Production

15) PR, Media and Entertainment

16) Medical and Healthcare

17) Pharmaceuticals and Biotech

18) Professional Services

19) Real Estate and Construction

20) Religion

21) Retail

22) Sports

23) Telecom

24) Transportation and Logistics

25) Travel and Hospitality

Ulitzer Will Change the Public Relations Game Once and Forever
The launch of Ulitzer will also change the "public relations" business the way we know it today. After Ulitzer, every PR representative will have a Ulitzer author page where he/she will publish client "news" under the appropriate topics, as well as on their author page. PR firms will also create their own company name "topic" in Ulitzer where news originating from their firm can be permanently displayed under the appropriate subject area.

Most important, with Ulitzer, PR firms can easily create author pages and submit articles for their clients. Once they publish their clients' bylined articles on Ulitzer, these stories will automatically be picked up not only by Ulitzer "topic" journals and magazines but also, under a Creative Commons license, by dozens of other technology magazines, both print and online.