Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the widespread “convenient” use of the web, social networks, and “new to you” etail sites is the painful process of creating, managing, and remembering profile and login information.

OpenID is a project which solves just that problem — providing a single login/password for users across a multitude of sites. And while this provides enormous convenience for customers, it also suddenly allows etailers to identify a single customer across multiple sites and channels. Powerful stuff.

Microsoft Passport was the first major attempt at this concept, and it didn’t really go anywhere. But now, Techcrunch reports that Yahoo has Implemented OpenID and that the likes of Google, IBM, etc. are mulling the idea as well. If it happens, this will (IMO) be the most important technology development of 2008.

I welcome it. And at the same time I worry that it provides “Beacon-like” oversight of advertisers on customers. And that’s scary.

Now, combine this development with the concept behind OpenSocial, and it looks like the web might just unify itself for users. Finally. Big stuff.

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