Sharing user info with other vB sites

[bigmattyh]

Has anyone thought about this?

I know that I get a little tired of re-entering my user information every time I register at a vB site. The information is generally the same each time -- same user name, same location, etc. etc. etc. I was thinking: maybe there's an efficient way of setting up a very simple network of vB sites so that user information can be shared.

Here's how the basic network could work. First, there would be a central hub-site, that would act as a repository for user info. This central database would be where all the user's basic data would be stored. People start out by registering there, at the hub-site, and entering in their standard user information.

Then, sites using vB would join the network (free of course), becoming a member-site. When you go to register on a member-site, there would be an option to enter your standard nickname and get your info from the vB userinfo hub. If this option is selected, the member-site queries the hub's database, and fills in its database with the hub's information. This way, the member-site's database could include any number of customizations without a hassle -- only the standard fields would be updated.

The update process is a little sketchy in the rough idea-phase of this plan, but there are a number of possible solutions to keep the member-site's databases updated. For example, whenever a user wants to change his information, he could go to the hub-site, and change it there, and then go to each of the member-sites where he's registered and click an "update" button. A more efficient way (but maybe open to some security concerns?) would be to have the hub-site send the member-sites the new db information when the hub-site's info is updated. But that might require access to the member-sites mySQL tables. Another possibility -- send the info from the hub-site to a file in a specific directory on the member-site, and then have a cron-job check for updates periodically.

Just some thoughts. I'd like to do this, if there's a way. Has anyone any good ideas to deal with the update process?