Posted by Mike Bijon February 13, 2006
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.
This is interesting because the idea behind TrustBacks is to build a detailed electronic identity and social system. InfoCards already authenticate an individual’s identity, one of the keys to showing a relationship is truthful and keeping the system spam-free. Then a TrustBack could be tied to an InfoCard identity making the trust portable and confirmable.
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.
Posted by Mike Bijon February 10, 2006
Gmail for Domains will likely turn out to be more expensive and have much more competition than suggested by Paul Kedrosky’s “Gmail for Domains: Oh-Oh Outlook”. Corporate bandwidth is still in short-supply and expensive. Microsoft’s Office Live doesn’t look to be a complete waste-of-space either.
Based on the amount of extra traffic created by the constant background refreshes of Gmail, I’m not so sure the economics of viewing email on a hosted, AJAX-enabled platform are all that good. The high costs of WAN bandwidth, in the US, and securing/filtering that traffic properly, will make Gmail for Domains much more cosly than most companies will initially expect. Nonetheles, the adoption rate of Gmail for Domains probably won’t be slowed. Any reaction to speed or cost issues will likely be after-the-fact, with a near-complete lack of attention paid to security and bandwidth by most SMBs.
The launch of Microsoft’s Office Live and what looks to be a decent hosted-email, -SharePoint/storage, -CRM platform will provide a good amount of competition for Gmail for Domains. The interface may be too-complicated, but the added collaboration features and Office Live’s resemblance to the already familiar Outlook, Outlook Express, and HotMail should make it very competitive. Of course, Microsoft’s graphic-laden interface is bound to be even more bandwith-hungry than Gmail but, again, that will just sow user-unhappiness and not slow adoption.
Posted by Mike Bijon February 03, 2006
…don’t make a lot of money in the process.
Craigslist is adding a $10 fee to New York apartment listings posted by brokers, but not to those posted by private “individuals”, beginning on March 1st. By instituting the fee Craig and the small staff at Craiglist primarily hope to improve the quality of their online apartment listings - though they will probably rack up a fair amount of income in the process.
It should seem obvious, but the novel concept of providing an excellent service with minimal fees is turning the world of both print and online classifieds on its head. If anything is actually an example of web2.0 - that’s it.
Mike Bijon: I work as senior technology manager and technologist for 
