I had a great lunch with TrustPlus founder Shawn Broderick. TrustPlus helps people trust by letting them view the reputations of others and by building their own reputations – anywhere on the Web. TrustPlus is building a community of trust, giving people the tools to weed out fraudulent buyers and sellers, assess a potential friend, know which reviewers are reliable, protect themselves and others from online predators, and much more. TrustPlus has a reputation viewer browser plugin as well.

TrustPlus presented at Webinnovators here in Boston in January 2007. I mentioned them here and again here.

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If you follow the reputation space in any way, this is going to be an excellent event.

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School is proud to present Reputation Economies in Cyberspace. The symposium will be held on December 8, 2007 at Yale Law School in New Haven, CT.

This event will bring together representatives from industry, government, and academia to explore themes in online reputation, community-mediated information production, and their implications for democracy and innovation. The symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Microsoft Corporation.

I hope they record the event as I won’t be able to attend.

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Recently I spoke with Mark Erza of Honesty Online, which is trying to bring trust, accountability and safety to online dating.

At first glance, Honesty Online looks similar to other background check companies which have been vying for a slice of the online dating market for several years now.

Mark took me through the process of getting credentialed on a demo system, which resulted in some problems but overall I was impressed with the process.

The core differentiator between background checks services is the experience of using the system, the portability of the credential and the price. Every background check provider says they have the best data. HO is no different, they get their data from the same places as the competition.

There are gaping holes in coverage across the US, and forget about Europe. In short, these solutions are suitable as a first line of defense, but I am concerned about the false sense of security that online daters might feel as they browse “certified” members on their favorite dating sites.

The missing information is reputation. Reputation magement has not taken hold of the online industry as of yet, a few scattered sites but no single repository of reputation data.

There are many background check companies vying to do business in the dating and social networking market. It seems as though Backgroundchecks.com and Honesty Online are in position to sew up these markets between themselves. Both have deals coming together with our favorite dating and social sites and I’m looking forward to being certified (crazy or sane, I want that icon that shows people I’m the real deal.)

In order to try and find out who I really am, Honesty Online quizzed me about zip codes and addresses that I had back in college. It’s fascinating to see this information dredged up from some digital abyss, I started going down memory lane in the middle of the demo, trying to remember the names of friends that used to live in my building in Brooklyn.

The quiz adapts to your responses, if you get a question wrong, it will ask you other questions. Credentials are good for one year, which seems to be an industry standard.

Honesty Online will make additional revenue on the velvet rope upsell- requiring matching credentials to see other people, more thorough checks, etc. If they add a reputation system, I can’t see why dating sites wouldn’t use the service.

I mentioned that Honesty Online powers the Mate1 background check system a few months back.

I’ve thought of doing a shootout between various background check companies, is this something you would like to see here?

If your site uses HO, or you have something to say about background checks, leave a comment and let’s keep the discussion  going.

Related posts:

1. Honesty Online Identity Verification Services
2. Honesty Online Offers FastLife Speed Dating Identity Verification
3. Honesty Online Partners with DatingHeadshots

I’m a strong proponent for online dating companies embracing the concept of identity verification and management. It makes sense in this day and age that safety play a a larger part in online introductions. People say that nothing awful has happened to anyone dating online. I always append the word “yet” to those statements. At some point things will go terribly wrong between two people who met on a dating site. That’s the reality of life.

Identity verification/management/background checks is where the industry is heading at the moment. Ever since SITRAS in December, the back rooms at major dating companies have been abuzz with executives and consultants trying to wrap their brains around the implications of online safety, from a customer service, legal and financial perspective. I’ll have more on this in the upcoming weeks. Some of what I’ll share will have you shaking your heads in disbelief.

I started this post because I wanted to bring up a concept that’s been bouncing around in my head for some time now. It’s not as du jour as background checks, but reputation management is alive and kicking on a number of large websites with large customer bases and it’s relevance to online dating shouldn’t be overlooked. Think of Greatboyfriends.com, think of eBay, think of Amazon sellers. I’m not saying there aren’t tremendous hurdles to a workable reputation management application that fits into the online dating space, all I’m saying is that it’s worth understanding and exploring, for it merits and problems.

Today I read that Overstock.com is gunning for a slice of eBay’s auction action. I’ll let Chris Saunders take it from here:

Overstock.com’s play for auction dominance is most centered around integrating the popular trend of online social networking — as popularized by sites like Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, Ryze, and a slew of others — in which users rank each other and refer friends and contacts to others.

Like eBay, Overstock.com will use a feedback system to rate buyers and sellers. However, in connection with the referral concept inherent in social networking, Overstock.com Auctions will rely instead on what it calls “reputation networks.”

“These ‘reputation networks’ will work particularly well for on-line auctions, where buyers, sellers, enthusiasts and experts are traditionally anonymous — and opinions are often biased,” Byrne wrote. He added that anonymous bias is responsible for “the declining value of ratings and the increasing tendency for retaliatory and spiteful ratings.”

Specifically, users give each other a numeric rating (from -2 to +2) following a transaction indicating satisfaction with the deal. (Users can also enter comments alongside ratings.)

The sum of those ratings is a user’s Business Rating, and users with whom a buyer or seller has done business become part of their Business Network. Meanwhile, Overstock.com Auctions will also feature a separate “Personal Rating,” wherein social contacts can rank each other on a one- to five-star scale.

The upshot of all this is that users can see others’ with relationships to their own Business and Personal Networks — ideally making trading easier, less worrisome, and safer.

Will reputation networks solve all the safety issues relating to online dating? Probably not. Does it make sense to pay attention to how other industries are experimenting with it? Absolutely.

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