Google Auth Launches

Google Authentication for Web Apps just launched. I got wind of this on my visit to the Google campus two weeks ago (more on this visit next week) and I'm glad they've rolled it out. This service lets you build a web app that uses Google's user accounts for user authentication. All the build-to-flip optimists will immediately adopt it, but the rest of us probably aren't willing to cede our users to Google just yet. The word I had from inside Google is that this is not an identity play, it's something they were developing for internal use and are offering externally to help people build add-ons to Google services (e.g., the documentation talks about a website with calendar data letting the users of the website add the dates to their Google Calendar). Expect Google Passport hysteria in the first week, followed by technologists finding real use cases thereafter. [Update 30Jun2006: looks like they pulled it (the link 404s). I'll update with more info when I have it.][Update 30Jun2006: link works again. Someone pulled the trigger too soon, it looks. It's up and out now, though.]