What do Rapleaf, Blogging, and ClaimID have in common?

The simple fact is they are all based on trust - either providing trust or being supported by it.

Never heard of these three before? Okay maybe you heard about blogging but did you think about trust much when you did your blogging or when you read what others blogged? This is early days in the blogosphere and so like most small towns today (or according to ‘bowling for columbine’ most of Canada) we don’t yet lock our doors because everyone knows everyone else (not to be taken too literally).

But with ‘events’ happening with ever increasing frequency you have to wonder: Academic Blogging Scandal, Wikipedia Scandal #1, Academics vs Open Accesss, Wikipedia Scandal #2, and the list goes on. Sadly this is happening more often and worse its having a disproportionate effect on trust inside the blogosphere by outsiders and insiders. Now most people in the blogosphere (those really involved) know that as Scoble and Israel mention in their book:

Naked Conversations - Thorn of Roses - Loss of Message Control - pg143
‘What happens when someone’s conversation is exaggerated or untrue? Other bloggers usually jump in to set the record straight’

But outside perception isn’t consistent with their testimony at least not from what I have seen when talking the ’suits’ and MBA types. Besides eventually the blogosphere will develop into a big city and most people just don’t care in big cities what their neighbour does with his time - so the question for me is where does that leave us today?

Well today we are lucky and that’s because lots (like 5+) of companies are announcing or just launching products and web services that will fill the small but quickly growing need for authentication of Internet content and identity management. For blogging these two issues go hand in hand, we are our content and our content is our identity. If a customer says Roger what do you know about blogging, social media, Internet communication strategies, content management, etc. I could refer them to my websites, where they can read what I have said and the comments of others (this site is struggling by the way so - cough cough, hint hint) and decide for themselves (or I could just sell them the old fashioned way).

But eventually I envision (working on this presently) having ClaimID, Rapleaf, and Microformats integrated directly into my Wordpress blogs. I want those who comment to be able to link automagically to their ClaimID and/or Rapleaf account as simply as a gravatar user. If I publish an event (shameless plug here and here) I want you to be able to search for it. If I publish that I am selling a mobile phone, I want ClaimID and Rapleaf integrated directly into the transaction.

In the end I want my clients, readers, friends, and peers to be as anonymous or as authentic as they wish. I think you deserve it, and I think we will be better for it.

If you believe in what I am saying all these services are available today although no one that I know of has yet integrated or created a mashup with them as yet. However because none of them is geared to blogging specifically you may want to consider cocomment (I’m here) it tracks all your comments across the blogosphere and could I believe potentially lead to an added level of credibility. Maybe cocoment will even add a rate my comment feature in one day soon - hint hint.
If you have any questions or wish to add your thoughts feel free to leave a comment below.