9/26/05

Trust Network

by lawrence at Monday, September 26, 2005
There is now a visual Trust Network live on each user profile page.

More on this to follow :)

4 comments:

  1. kamylienneSeptember 26, 2005 3:57 PM

    Wow. The user pages just got way more colorful.

    First, it reminded me that the feature was even there. I forgot all about it, for a while.

    Second, for me, the jury's still out on whether or not I like the idea or not, honestly. Especially with pictures and such available, this could be potentially one of those slap-each-other-on-the-back kind of deals. So, I'm a little skeptical, and even a little reluctant to use the feature.

    How things turn out and how I perceive them, though, are two completely different things. Let's hope for the best.

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  2. lawrenceSeptember 26, 2005 5:26 PM

    Fair points Kamylienne.

    I do think the user pages look a lot better visually, and I think it's sort of neat to see a visual display of your RateItAll Trust Network on your user page.

    The mindset behind this feature, is to let the vast majority of the site's users who DON'T post, get a quick glimpse into the trustworthiness of a reviewer as judged by the community.

    Obviously this will be more relevant for product/movie/business reviews, than "what's your favorite color" reviews.

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  3. lawrenceSeptember 26, 2005 6:28 PM

    Good point Mr. Political... the risk of obscene pictures crossed my mind as well. We'll have to keep an eye on that.

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  4. lawrenceSeptember 28, 2005 1:18 PM

    Thanks for the feedback Traderboy.

    Couple of comments:

    - as currently instituted on the site, I agree that the Trust Network functionality has zero value for regular RateItAll users.

    But what you are seeing is a tiny step towards RateItAll being able to offer customized ratings and review results for EVERY member of the community. The vision is that by leveraging the power of personal networks, any member of the RIA community will be able to filter out the opinions of those who do not have at least some trust connnection to them. This ability to customize your view of the ratings data, will make RateItAll a more helpful tool in getting recommendations for anything covered on the site (tv, movies, books, products, stores, people, entertainers, politics, bands, web sites, newspapers, dog food, dog breeds, politicians, etc, etc, etc.)

    Before this can happen, several things need to take place:

    - RateItAll needs to grow, and extend out beyond a core group of regular users. This is already happening, and it's happening dramatically.
    - The site's emphasis on "Helpful Votes" as the sole measure of reputation needs to go away (more on this to follow). To put it bluntly, the helpful button is broken as a value add to the site, and has been for a while.
    - Tools need to be added to allow RateItAll members to easily add people they trust IN REAL LIFE to their RIA networks.
    - Filters need to be added to every ratings list and item page, that allows registered users to isolate the ratings and reviews of those reviewers within N (1? 2? 3?) degrees of their trusted network.

    One other clarification - the network of pictures that you see on your user page is NOT your Trusted Network. This is only a summary of the people that trust you. Your Trusted Network is the people that YOU trust. Only you can decide who belongs in your trust network. My advice is to think about it in terms of recommendations - if this person recommends something to you ( a book, a movie, a place, a tv show, a person, a song, a band, etc.), will you take their recommendation seriously?

    Finally, we are looking into ways to allow folks to disable the images on their user page to deal with this page load time issue. Stay tuned.

    As always, thanks for all of the comments. I'm very excited about this functionality - not by what it can do today (which is pretty much squat), but what it will be able to enable in the future. Bear with me on this one :)

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