Web IdentityHow

How can virtual identity be trusted when anybody can create, manipulate, and modify them?Since, on the web, people do not interact with actual people, sure that one person can have multiple identities. The article on NPR, "Startups Help Clean Up Online Reputations" introduces the company which does it for you.
My answer is probably you are identified by the reputation which build by others. When I go to eBay or Amazon, I always look at the rating of users.
Fair enough, that the company can manipulate their rating as well. However, I think what makes website, web identity credible is the consistency of the reputation. If you see 50 super good ratings and 50 super bad ratings, then you would wonder the quality of the reputation system and also the company. I think company should and would maintain their reputation system honest and credible in order to earn trust from the customers.

What we are bargaining for usefulness.

After reading about the Japanese ImaHima,just in time, just in place matching services, I wondered where this virtual networking community is heading to. Companies are blogging not only on corporate cultures but CEO's private lives, and mobile phone users are joining the virtual community with their full personal information.The biggest Japanese social networking site, Mixi, is gaining users rapidly after the IPO last year. People are getting used to type in all the information on the web page without noticing it. I notice many people putting their personal diaries on Mixi. The outcome of this is the personalized amazon.com web page which welcomes you with the recommended books listed on the front page, and comments from your peers who read your diaries.


System is bringing more and more private information into the public, making the website purely open, non-discriminatory and useful. After the IPO of Mixi, the stock price increased dramatically, realizing the monetary value of personal data.

Yes, anyone can take advantage of open system as Naked Conversation stated as, "participation age", however, users need to be smart enough to realize the database behind the system and what you are bargaining.

Blog Works

Blog is the first marketing medium that business can advertise them and get response from the customers at the same time. I think the most important thing of today’s marketing is not to be most mentioned company on the internet, but the most trusted adviser on the internet. Nowadays, any business needs to manage the customer relations and in that sense, every business is in the service industry. That means, business needs to build trust with customers increasing the credibility and transparency, and blog can certainly improve the trust relationship with customers.

Blog Doesn’t Work

Though Corporate Blog can enhance the customer relations, it has downside to it too. The business would not be able to maintain the credibility of the customer’s comments and complains. Internet is useful but as any professor can post multiple hyper positive ratings on ratemyprofessor.com, both business and customers can also put deceptive information on the internet without hurting themselves. It is a human nature to be anti-everything and probably well satisfied customers would not bother posting any comments online, but frustrated viewer of the website would very possibly be lowering the rating by large scales.

Selfish Gene

Internet is freedom. Anybody can find out about anything on the internet, and anyone can also share anything on the internet. Internet took away the restriction on what people can share by what amount. However, this freedom came with cost; reliability and protection of commons. Since there is no physical restriction on the internet properties, only way that internet can be regulated is by people self-regulating themselves.

The author of the Selfish Gene argued that people act only to their interest or to conserve their genes. I agree with him, and I believe one can act only regarding to their interest. However, because of the self-interest to maintain one’s reputation higher, I believe people can self-regulate themselves. For example, on amazon.com, supplier can deceive buyer by giving out misleading information, but they would not do so because they are concerned about their ratings, purely selfish reasons. On the internet, identity and reputation are the same means because people can choose who they want to be, and that is the only way to protect common good against self-interest.

Copyleft Equality

What’s great about internet is that everyone can share their knowledge. Knowledge was once considered as public goods because one’s gain of knowledge does not exclude others, but rather leads to the improvement of mankind. However, education has been the most expensive goods that people can buy. This dilemma can be only solved by the internet. Traditionally, open system such as Linux and Wikipedia has developed itself by publicizing the system, and that lead to the greater innovation of the products. Also the concept of Network Externality, meaning the value of technology increases, as it is shared by more people, can be applied. As knowledge and systems are shared by people, the value of the knowledge and system increases. System and knowledge does not mean anything unless there are people who use or acknowledge them. Therefore, copyleft or the open character of the internet would be very beneficial and equal to all of us as long as network is defined as open resource.