One of the most interesting problems around today is modeling trust levels in a relationship. The NY Times today has an article on the ettiquete of “unfriending” on Facebook for instance. Facebook has a binary 0/1 solution. eCommerce sites have a narrow, transactional rating model that works well enough in a limited context in the aggregate. Requests for references ask the blunt question: would you hire this person again? But all these approaches are blunt instruments. We need better approaches for the age of Twitter. Here’s my first stab. What do you think?
nk
About Venkatesh Rao
This is very similar to a Clay Shirky discussion on how people need more granular methods of managing privacy online. The example he referred to was a friend who changed their status on Facebook and accidentally making the change public (“engaged” -> “single” status).
This is just one example on this spectrum definition. Funnily enough, I recently jumped from “Let’s keep in touch…” to “Hey, you in town?” via Twitter recently.