As much as I wish it was otherwise, this announcement is directed at da’ Geeks.

Weeks of masquerading as a designer made me feel all dirty so I cleansed myself with some good ol’ hardcore coding. It soft-launched this weekend, but I’m happy to announce that RUWT? now supports OpenID.

I’d love to include a great description or video about OpenID, but it doesn’t exist. Not a single one. Some come close, but then start shilling for some product or website, or tossing out terms like Relying Parties. Talking about RPs in an OpenID video == FAIL.

We all no I’m know wordsmith, but here’s my best shot at it…

Would you like to apply for an Old Navy credit card today and save 20% on your purchase?

Raise your hand if you haven’t heard that or some variation at a store recently. It’s easy to ignore, but what if it wasn’t an offer and was a requirement?

Imagine a mall where every store had it’s own credit card and it was the only form of payment accepted. No cash. No Capital One Visa. Just your Target, Best Buy, or Gap Card. You were more than welcome to come in and window shop, but if you actually wanted to purchase something, you had to whip out your ID, prove that you were who you said you were, and suffer through filling out a boring form. For. Every. Single. Store.

Pretty lame, huh? Remind you of any sites you’ve been to lately? Feel free to click around, but if you want to post, send a message or do anything at all worthwhile, you’re thrown onto to a screen chock full of textboxes, checkboxes, and images filled with squiggly characters that you have to strain to identify. I’m not in Kindergarten! Stop giving me alphabet tests!

So how do we fix this? Some say with OpenID. It’s a young technology and definitely has it’s flaws, but it’s a step in the right direction. Much like your credit card that you can use to shop anywhere, OpenID gives you one identity that you can use to login anywhere.

Before you tear your hair out the next time you see a registration form, check if the site supports OpenID because chances are you already have one. No, I’m serious. All Yahoo, AOL, WordPress, Blogger, Flickr, LiveJournal, Bloglines…(you get the idea) users do. Intrigued? Head over to openid.net to learn more.

So what does this all mean for you, the RUWT? user? Not much really. It may draft more minions into RUWTbot’s army, but the emphasis is on may. Either way, give it a shot and let me know if it gives you any trouble.

Bonus points to mrman226 for being the first to notice a new feature that I’ve been working on all week and rolled out late last night. Official announcement coming on Monday.

Another feature was launched late last night, but it hasn’t shown it’s face yet. Folks near the top of the WYG? Leaderboard will find it the most interesting. Keep an eye out.

It has been weeks in the making, but there’s finally a new version of the RUWT? Sports Toolbar.

A few requested features were added including compatibility with Firefox 3’s new beta, taking up less space when the ticker is at the bottom of the browser, always listing the home team second, and adding College Hockey to the list of trackable sports.

I hate spending time on features that users can’t see, but I’ve spent weeks rearchitecting the toolbar to deal with it’s steady growth. So tell all your friends! I got scalability up the ying-yang! Or up the wazoo? I can never remember which one.

If you use Firefox or Flock, what are you waiting for? Get the toolbar now! If you already have the toolbar, help us spread the word by leaving us a review!