Comments on: The value of networks of trust

By: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Looking through the wrong end of the wire

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Looking through the wrong end of the wire — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:36:42 +0000

[...] : And as if all that’s not enough, see also Tom Evslin and Fred Wilson on Reed’s Law — which holds, in Fred’s words, that “if each node of the network was itself a network (a GFN) then the value of the network scales with the exponential of the number of nodes in the network” — and my clumsy efforts to get my head around it here and here. Fred Wilson begs Metcalfe to also tackle Reed. See as well Umair Haque on Google and Reed and on Metcalfe and the edge. [...]

By: pheloxi

pheloxi — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 18:33:04 +0000

pitty that none of “the web 2.0 geeks/gurus” though more creative name for web 2.0.

should not be web 5.0? adding chat web 2.0; adding video web 3.0; blogging web 4.0; podcasting 4.5.

is it related to internet 2?

can any one explain number thing?

web 2.0 is from what I understand adding a more human human factor to web, but give it a ‘”windows 3.1″ name.

“the web 2.0 geeks/gurus” forget what happens a lot they should degeek or give it human touch roo!

why are there no degeeking advisers in the next genaration web or on the web?

By: Hugh J. Sloan III

Hugh J. Sloan III — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 18:18:07 +0000

Jeff:

Nova Spivack, Peter Drucker’s grandson (yawn), Founder of Earthweb (NASDAQ) and second in the technology world as a visionary behind Berners-Lee (no yawn), is working on something that is light years ahead of Mssrs. Zander and O’Reilly, involving the semantic web, really the next big thing.

This company is called Radar Networks and may interest you as a reality that is backed by Paul Allen and Vulcan.

Sitting in ex parte for Robert Vesco (Hugh)
Angel Investor
Silicon Vallley

By: jonny goldstein

jonny goldstein — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 01:52:15 +0000

I ran with the whiteboard idea and did a diagram.

By: CaptiousNut

CaptiousNut — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 21:04:13 +0000

Alex is right. This smells like highfalutin, academic mumbo-jumbo.

I am not one to underestimate bloggers, but it reeks of blogger self-promotion too.

By: hyku | blog - Josh Hallett

hyku | blog - Josh Hallett — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:20:56 +0000

What Should Companies Do?

The following is cross-posted to Marcom Blog Over at Church of the Customer Ben McConnell talks about a passionate McDonald’s blogger, McChronicles. You can read Ben’s post to get all the details, but what I want to focus on is…

By: Alex Dorph

Alex Dorph — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 18:58:27 +0000

I think the future of economic blogging will be based on vague terms, like trust networks, and future bosses will give up alot of future money to people who know how to confuse them with future vague concepts. R2000 Bathroom Review

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:21:08 +0000

I believe you're absolutely right about the significance of trust, but would nitpick the line: "A network built on trust is clearly more valuable than a network built on technology.". The two aren't mutually exclusive, in fact Tim Berners-Lee has been discussing trust in the context of Web technology since the start. The "Semantic Web layer cake" puts trust right at the top of the stack. A lot of work has already been done in this area, although only recently have the applications started to appear, e.g. FilmTrust (documented in Trust in Web Based Social Networks). It may be a while before this filters through to the commercial world in any big way. But the fact that RDF technologies through which trust can be expressed are inherently compatible with grassroots things like FOAF and RSS (RSS 1.0 is done in RDF) suggests any significant barriers to trust-enhanced advertising won't be technical.

By: Duneview

Duneview — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 01:47:12 +0000

Maybe that diagram-filled whiteboard would be helpful.
After reading some of your Old-Media-Is-Exploded-Small-Is-The-New-Big-2.1-Conversation Kingdom-Post-Media-Post-Scarcity posts, I’ll admit it’s all a muddle for for me. But I’m trying.
I only take comfort that, based on the comments here and here, everyone else seems to be stumbling over the use of “trust” as the new uber-value for the new 2.0 world — it’s not just me. (By the way, this enumation thing is getting very old, kinda like when “jump the shark” jumped the shark.)
I hate to get all 1.0 on you, but it seems to me when a newspaper’s circulation drops or a television show gets cancelled, it’s because its consumers (are we still allowed to say that?) no longer “trust” them to deliver value. The value always has been trust. Nothing new here.
Bloggers (in fact, all web destinations) that deliver value will move up the chain and be desired by users and therefore by advertisers. Simple as that. Advertisers don’t buy “network(s) built on technology.” They buy and have always bought networks built on trust, networks that deliver value.
You’re right that it will be difficult to manage small, ad-hoc networks. That’s one of the reasons national advertisers have preferred buy on the networks rather than dealing with 500+ individual stations. It’s more efficient. But it’s not hard to chart trust. Or give it a metric. It’s just that instead of calling it a (10), you want to call it (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1).

By: aaron wall

aaron wall — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:33:33 +0000

Well, when you link at something you are typically casting a vote for it that search engines and humans use to assume you usually have some amount of trust for what is on the other side of that link.

I think also you have to have ways of tagging the topics…because you may trust me as a blogger, but think of me differently when I am in another social circumstance. Good people frequently make bad decisions, and I might be smart at one topic and exceptionally inept at others.

Then there is the issue of value. It is not easy for most people to see at the first instance, but sometimes the value is created not from where the advertisement rests, but from where the visitor originated.

Google AdSense ads on spam sites that rank well in Yahoo! or MSN search often convert better than contextual ads on sites that are useful with well thought out content, due in large part to users seeing ads right after they expressed commercial intent and have limited options outside of clicking the ad. Sometimes there is great value where there is no trust.

By: laurence haughton

laurence haughton — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:05:55 +0000

Sorry. That last sentence should read: “And their terrible track record of delivering “less than” whatâ€™s expected only makes their trust gap bigger.”

By: laurence haughton

laurence haughton — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 23:54:20 +0000

I’ve spent time researching trust and found several insightful studies.

One explained: Most trust builds slowly, taking months and years of interactions. However when people are in a situation where they need assistance they will quickly extend a form of trust called â€œcalculated trustâ€ to someone who exhibits the right behavior.

Calculated trust is decided through a simple checklist. â€œDoes the other party,â€ the potential trustee asks:
(a) share my values,
(b) speak my language, and
(c) listen to me

And that is the probelm. Who do you know in the media that truly shares the values, speaks the language and really “listens to” businesspeople?

Sure they all say they are “trusted” but that’s not what I’ve heard in 20 years of private conversations with business decision makers.

It’s a very low trust business model specifically because the agents don’t share the values, speak the language, or listen to business people. And their terrible track record of delivering what’s expected only makes that trust gap bigger.

By: lawrence coburn

lawrence coburn — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 23:44:05 +0000

Brilliant post Jeff.

What makes networks of trust effective is that they project the shadow of the future on current transactions (paraphrasing Howard Rheingold I believe.)

So, exactly as you say, if me or one of my contacts screws up this transaction, you’ll cut me out of your network, and I won’t see the next one.

By: rightojimbo

rightojimbo — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:59:38 +0000

if this is the sort of thing jarvis tells people when they pay him to consult, said people are really, really stupid. even stupider than i thought.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:29:19 +0000

Brian: I skipped a step, you’re right.
The issue is that advetisers want to trust their medium (not to, for example, say “fuck” and embarrass them or to lie, cheat, and steal and hurt their brand by association). It’s not so much about advertisers trusting consumers or vice versa (though, of course, that is the real end game) but, in this case, about trusting media placement. Is that clearer?

By: Peter Caputa

Peter Caputa — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:27:58 +0000

I think a larger need is to have transparency in influence. Publishers need to be transparent about who they can influence and how many of those people they can influence. And third parties are necessary to capture, audit and report that influence. I coincidentally just blogged about this. I haven't wrapped my head around how we can distribute the auditor or reporter of "influence". When it comes to something as simple as advertising accountability, I don't think we need people to audit results. Computers will do the job. The question becomes how transparent do we need the auditors to be? I'd say they need to be pretty damn transparent and they need to be willing to compete not based on network ownership, but based on ability to audit and optimize. If you want to audit the suitability of a contractor or a potential baby sitter, we might need human trust keepers, though.

By: Noel Guinane

Noel Guinane — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:26:48 +0000

You’re right. It is all about relationships and trust, but then it always has been. There never was much of a relationship between people without trust. Taking something online magnifies that need because if you don’t have people’s trust, or lose it, it’s going to become apparent pretty quickly, but nothing has fundamentally changed. It’s as true today as it was a thousand years ago – without a reputation, preferably an honest one, you’ve got nothing.

Someone once likened trust to a gossamer thread. I’ve forgotten the quote but it was something along the lines of trust being as delicate as a single strand in a spider’s web – once broken, it’s impossible to repair.

By: Tish G

Tish G — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:09:37 +0000

You’re right Jeff…trust is the key. Peer-to-peer communications establishes trust–not top-down communications. Peer-to-peer builds nodes. Exponential growth of communication feeds the math and gives these guys something to do.

Transparency, or a kind of transluncency–as in putting someone out there in the trences to establish peer-to-peer communication with little guys–will be essential to business. Monlithic corps won’t be able to hide in their citidels of “corporate culture.” They’re going to have to become like old fashioned shopkeepers who dealt with the general public every day. They will have to develop thick skins. Even Apple will have to get a clue.

but there’s a ways to go before we get there–and that was pretty obvious at BlogOn. The top-down people aren’t going to budge any time soon.

By: brian

brian — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:01:18 +0000

Jeff, I don’t quite get how trust in and of itself makes for more effective advertising. Joe Advertiser may trust Tim Intermediary who may be trusted by Kate Consumer, but if Joe is selling Mach3 Turbo razors it would not interest Kate. Likewise if Kate just bought a new Honda Civic ads that try to sell her a Ford Explorer will be a waste. Although the nexus might work if Tim were a specialist/expert in a specific market, if Tim were just an entertainer, I don’t see how mutual affection leads to improved sales and less clutter.