TrustBacks - Create a Public Social Network by Extending the TrackBack System
Posted by Mike Bijon February 12, 2006
The original TrackBack system has been a boon to bloggers. It has created a deeply interlinked system of sites and generated incredible search rankings as a result. Despite the impressive results, the crediblity being generated by trackbacks is somewhat biased toward authors and “regurgitators”, bloggers who just build lists and link to outside posts (aka: human aggregators). I think it’s time to extend the system to promote individuals and skills instead of just web sites and prolific writing (no, it’s not because I want higher rankings myself, I’m already very happy with two Memeorandum links after just 16 posts here at Moogle1).
I’m calling the extension of the trackback system a “TrustBack” and think it can be used to show credibility on and off the web - basically a set of credentials that’s generated from all interactions with people and not just by authorship. Trustbacks should work the same way that trackbacks currently do, but they will require some additional storage, provider, or invitation system to bring non-bloggers into the mix. Also, I should be able to maintain a skill profile for my trustbacks to better show the credibility of my skills and to avoid the “list of my friends” that seems to be the core of most current social networks (Myspace, LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.).
Trustbacks should be listed on a single page about the author instead of being displayed on the single linked article like trackbacks. That should be easy enough for people running their own CMS (WordPress, TextPattern, MovableText) to handle already and a simple, free service for personalized search engines (Technorati, del.icio.us, etc.) or existing social networks to add. Unlike a trackback though, a trustback should be portable from place-to-place on the web, so either a notification system for trustback “senders” or an identity system will need to be created. This leaves even more user authentication/spam filtering to handle, but will nicely marginalize service providers who filter trustbacks from outside their own system. Since trustbacks are basically an identity and authentication system, with a big enough network, negative trust should push out anyone trying to fake a set of credentials.
A trustback invitation system wouldn’t be much different from the current invite systems used on social sites (like MySpace, LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.) except that they should not require registration and should be pre-filled by the person sending them. An example would be that I take a friend’s dog out when he gets stuck in terrible LA traffic, then I can send them an invite to “trustback” me and fill out the basic info up-front (ie: name, date, city/place, and what I did). All my friend needs to do is to click on the link in the email they receive to approve or edit the trustback. My trustback service provider can invite them to join, but I won’t stay with that provider for long if they either force registrations or spam my friend later.
Mike Bijon: I work as senior technology manager and technologist for 
[…] Yesterday I proposed the idea of creating a trust-system that would allow people to build and display credentials. Then Scoble posted on Kim Cameron’s implementation of Infocards in WordPress. Infocards store and authenticate digital identities, from Kim’s detailed description of the InfoCard system: Digital identities consist of sets of claims made about the subject of the identity, where “claims” are pieces of information about the subject that the issuer asserts are valid. This parallels identities used in the real world. For example, the claims on a driver’s license might include the issuing state, the driver’s license number, name, address, sex, birth date, organ donor status, signature, and photograph, the types of vehicles the subject is eligible to drive, and restrictions on driving rights. The issuing state asserts that these claims are valid. The claims on a credit card might include the issuer’s identity, the subject’s name, the account number, the expiration date, the validation code, and a signature. The card issuer asserts that these claims are valid. The claims on a self-issued identity, where the identity provider and subject are one and the same entity, might include the subject’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address, or perhaps just the knowledge of a secret. For self-issued identities, the subject asserts that these claims are valid. […]
[…] Update, 4/20/2006: It looks like someone is already working on a system that could be as extensible enough to provide a skills directory, and more, at ClaimID (found via Cloudalicious, from a search on tagging statistics). ClaimID is the first resource I’ve seen for aggregating and annotating information about someone (although without a way to verify the identities on ClaimID there’s still a question as to the authenticity of the data there). ClaimID should prove useful if people actually adopt it. Personally I think ClaimID and sites like it will just lead to “web tool” overload and prefer the idea of an open protocol for sending/receiving identity or trust info - so that everything can be integrated into whatever tools (Outlook, GMail, Wordpress, etc.) or web sites that I do choose to use. […]
Managing Online Identities with ClaimID…
Badges, shields, icons and chicklets are becoming more pervasive on blogs and discussion forums as companies offer tracking, verification and identity management services. I recently came across some new entrants, ClaimID and MicroID. ClaimID will all…
[…] While OpenID and other systems for managing online identity have been around for some time, of late there seems to be more interest and R&D in this space. One idea which might prove very useful in the dating and social networking space is trustbacks. I’m intrigued by this idea, and also by how it could be deployed using existing tagging systems like del.icio.us, or even slashdot’s karma system. […]