IGOpeople

I agree completly with building trust. As you said, one of the most important things is knowing who you are talking to. When your on Twitter, people can hide behind a nickname and end up spamming you. On IGO, the people use their real names so you know its a genuine person that your engaging with.

I think that you have done a great job in building trust among igo users, I know that I have complete trust in the site and feel good about having a presence on the site.

All good points. It's easy to forget it's a cross cultural divide we're communicating through and some people can take advantage of that.

It was really good to get your feedback on this and nice to see you all. I'll summarise some of the discussion later. I think this is a really good way to get a bit of a discussion going. I'd love to use again to get some feedback from you guys, but if there are other subjects you'd like to discuss, let me know and I'm happy to add my tuppence worth.

Campbell - a few others come to mind - and I have to say that I am far from perfect so I am sure I mess up from time to time:

• not being over self promotional - either on your own behalf or other people

• delivering what you promise - so if you offer to assist or share information do it in a timely matter
• in relation to online networking knowing when to take the conversation into a private space or via email/phone/or face to face

I'm very much interested in the issues of privacy, reputation, identity and trust in online environments. And how they are interrelated and build upon one another via various feedback loops.

I see @Rachel Cooke comment as echoing the truism that identity is the bedrock of trust. While @Krishna De shows how we can leverage our identity to build reputation, upon which we can establish trust. At least at the individual level.

@fi0nak and @Murrayhead Touch nicely on these issues at the group/community level. Expecially on cultural norms and scale. Trust tends to become diluted as the community scales. Scale accommodates more grey areas giving community members the opportunity to exploit community for personal gain. Scale also heightens issues surrounding privacy: information I give can be exploited by others who will take out of context and used against me for their own personal gain..

If you are interested in these subjects you might be interested in...

Daniel Solove is very good on the issue of privacy and reputation on the internet. Download his books for free.

Also danah boyd has just published her thesis. Of special interest is her discussion of how the ways in which the online world differs fundamentally from the real world (persistence, searchability, replicability, scalability, invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, and the blurring of public and private) and the knock on effects this has on privacy, reputation, identity and trust.

Niall,

Thanks for all of this. I'll certainly give this a read. I had mentioned authenticity as a key component of trust, which is associated with identity and reputation. Some inspiration from this book, which unfortunately I had to buy ;-(

Following up on the theme of trust, the Edelman Trust Barometer for 2009 is being launched around the world - although I think Ireland might be next week. Not surprisingly, the headline is that trust in companies has plummeted. Surprise, surprise. It will be interesting to delve into some of this detail, to see if this means that trust in personal referrals becomes more important?

Yip.  Turst is such a sensitive thing.  I am sure the huge risk taking and scandals will have a large part to play but trust canbe eroded even quicker when it effects individuals. ie its one thing banks losing lots of money but entirely different when people lose their jobs as a result.

Building on Campbells point Piaras Kelly wrote a post a good long time ago questioning if your friends/contact netwok would influence peoples perception of you in new business situations ie the bigger the network the better.  I wonder now in a era of questioning of trust if there will be a second look at network connections and a jump in people removing contacts that may not appear so trust worthy.  Are you as strong as the weakest connection! 

Just checking a new feature - to embed video discussions

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOgj0IuXeQR5XWjevDZu4qS-tWOQD9613NP00

Phishing with a Permit?

If this doesn't highlight the problem then I don't know what will? If this happened to me I'd be fair angry. What ye think? hard too know who to trust eh?