Humanizing Online Reputation: Connect.Me http://su.pr/2YsT4s
by @OsakaSaul on November 23, 2011
After learning from @DrummondReed, Chairman and a co-founder of @ConnectMe that the trust and reputation-building network his team is creating (currently in private beta) is just about to rein in the mass-messaging that got my goat, I further was treated to a one-on-one tour of where he and his colleagues are on issues of trust and online reputation scoring. If he achieved nothing else, Drummond certainly made a fan of me. I immediately regretted Scooping… with…
135 views so far – in just one of my ScoopIt magazines: “Blog Promotion”
The Blog Promotion Scoopit
Frankly, I initially took exception to the flurry of messages, in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter that I received recently. My reaction, shared on my blog in “Connect.me Cons Me” http://ping.fm/vStSa was woefully misguided. (I suggest a look at the comments on that article.) In fact, co-founders of Connect.Me addressed trust issues that I had with their network.
Connect.Me Partners’ Reactions
“Saul, you are right about several areas where we need to improve. We have added more controls and limits on vouch notifications — in fact you can turn notifications off on your Settings page. We are also adding more information about how to use Connect.Me — this will get easier as we add more features for using your reputation card. And your last point – about how to make it easier and faster to vouch for specific skills across a group of contacts – is one we are especially focused on.“
- Drummond Reed
“Our goal is to build a p2p reputation system that users can trust and keeps them in complete control. We have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes in the identity and privacy circles to get this done with a high degree of credibility…”
- Marc Coluccio
I was soon speaking with Drummond, and what I learned, I took to Quora and ensured that my Quora Post would be seen, by adding it to one of my ScoopIt magazines. Below, I show how it is just as easy to recommend one’s segment (my Quora post, in this case) to be syndicated by a friend’s ScoopIt, when you use the ScoopIt bookmarklet:
Recommending my ScoopIt segment on Connect.Me
I wanted to be sure to get featured in “Beta News,” and so I submitted my Quora post:
Recommend a ScoopIt to be ReScooped
Recommending my Connect.Me Quora Post Scoop to be re-scooped in someone else’s ScoopIt
Along with being rescooped by a couple other ScoopIt Magazines, getting picked up by KT-Online was a pleasant surprise (and led me to research Anita Hamilton) …
My Quora Post on Connect.Me: Humanizing Online Reputation
My email inbox had a slew of notifications showing that a number of people I asked (and a few I didn’t) rescooped the Quora post on Connect.Me
Connect.Me VS Klout & Peer Index - Rescooped
Many must be intrigued to learn – and share – how Connect.Me stands up to Klout
I can’t say I minded my piece getting picked up by the “SOCIAL MEDIA, what we think about!” ScoopIt (2 days after the publishing of my Quora post), since with 6,100 views, Martin Gysler is putting my own Blog Promotion ScoopIt to shame! (I must learn how he gets those… MORE networking to do!)
I am thoroughly convinced that Connect.Me will obliterate Klout as well as PeerIndex and possibly Kred as well. Connect.Me aims to humanize reputation scoring. Clout from our peers, with incredible transparency. Further, how the issue of trust is regarded, as Connect.Me is still being crafted, this is what wins you over.
The vouches are only the beginning. We are going to see stats per specialty/general public and by specialty/within our connections, and we will thus know who the ‘go-to’ person is, whether we want to fish within our own pond or worldwide (as we can by using LinkedIn Skills), and we will have this from Connect.Me.
Of course, in Connect.Me, we are able to declare our own specialties, prioritize (to increase the likelihood of being vouched for on those subjects, I am thinking) and at any time, order them and also edit them. Here’s me, current to 11/16/2011:
Saul Fleischman Trust Profile in Connect.Me
The Saul Fleischman Trust Profile in Connect.Me: shows just the main six specialties I would like to be vouched for, in the order I want them: CM helps me be know for these.
Many have vouched for me on several topics were set; those you see in the image above are the ones I want to appear in my mini-profile – those I would most appreciate vouches for.
Where is Klout with self-declared topics?
Klout and PeerIndex Losing Ground to Connect.Me
Klout and PeerIndex Losing Ground to Connect.Me
As of this writing, it is a Klout ‘Perk’ to receive early access to be able to declare our own specialties/topics (termed ‘Topics’ in Klout).
In fact, as for where the Connect.Me founders are coming from in the realm of reputation and trust, a must-read is the one-page summary of the ‘Respect Trust Framework‘ published by the non-profit Open Identity Exchange:
http://ping.fm/Mok3l
Connect.Me publishes it’s own mini-summary at http://ping.fm/3imxu In my session with Drummond, he explained:
“The big difference here is the Respect Promise — everyone who joins the network promises to respect the right of every other member to control their identity and data. This is a revolutionary new approach to protection of personal data and relationships online, with which we worked with some of the top digital identity and trust experts worldwide — enough so that it won the Privacy Award at this year’s European Identity Conference in Munich last May.”
Drummond suggested a short PDF called Building Lasting Trust on the Connect.Me blog that explains the four trust levels members progress through as they gve and receive vouches. It also explains the special role of what are called “trust anchors” — a topic so important enough that he volunteered to do a guest blog post explaining more about it next week.
