![Facebook and Google Dominate Online Identity War [STATS]](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/02XvaxSdaI1iz4Gz8rEMkWg/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1647018535.jpg)
A new study from OpenID company JanRain shows that users heavily prefer to use their Google and Facebook logins on websites that offer third party sign-in options.
In many segments, such as media, retail and technology, Facebook outstrips other authentication services by a sizable margin. Still, for JanRain's entire client base of 170,000, Google remains the most popular login service overall, commanding about 38% of all user authentications.
Yahoo logins account for around 12% of authentications, while Windows Live possesses another 5% of that total. LinkedIn and Twitter both allow for authentication via OAuth, and while LinkedIn is fairly new as a JanRain login option, Twitter is used for 16% of tech platform logins and 8% of media logins.
For retail websites, Facebook leads the pack with almost 40% of all logins. Yahoo also outperforms Google in terms of user authentication on retail sites.
Another aspect of third-party authentication is that it allows apps to publish information back to the network the user is linked to. The study shows that Facebook is the most popular site for users to show off app data on their own profiles. Interestingly, Twitter is the second most popular publishing destination. Yahoo and MySpace each count for less than 10% of user-published data from other sites and apps.
Authentication is a huge part of online identity, and how users choose to log in to a website can show a lot about where they make their "home" on the web. A growing number of users use and will continue to use Facebook to log in to new sites and apps, and to share stories about their online travels.
Do you think Twitter as a login and publishing service will catch up in popularity anytime soon?