The one question I have about this collaboration announcement why Cordance, NetMesh LiveJournal or of SixAppart were not listed in the announcement.
The Answer:
Every PR department from every company has to get involved. Each has a constituency and message that it wants to be clear. Every time a change is made it has to go everyone else for approval, often provoking a further change, and so it just takes time.
Kim I hear you about this and it is a legitimate explanation if you are dealing with 'big companies.' Last time I checked you only had to call two people to check in with NetMesh and Cordance as neither has PR departments. My guess is they would have noded yes to the announcement and would have been very happy to participate without more attention overhead. I think when you are dealing with as tightly knit a community of little companies who are collaborating deeply (perhaps how tightly knit was not obvious to you) it is good to be inclusive. It also seems a bit unfair to highlight those two over the others given the magnitude of this PR (500k people had watched the keynote via the web). Even though you say this "Nor was this meant to be PR as such" the truth is that for companies of the size they are it is a BIG deal in PR terms to be on announcement like the one you released yesterday.
Hopefully things will be smoother in the future with the formation of the Foundation for OpenID more official it will be easy to figure out who to talk to about these sort of 'announcements.'
Unconference.net