The Internet of Groups

Dave Curley writes:

You’ve probably already seen this since it’s making the usual plastic, etc. rounds. Essentially, it appears that a PR company — presumably hired by Monsanto — planted postings on a listserv that ultimately lead to Nature retracting an article.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not the article should have been published, this, to me, helps show how the internet’s strength as a “create your own identity” medium is also a weakness: on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, and nobody knows you’re a lying PR weasel.

Yes, astroturf lobbying exists in the physical world, people are planted in opposing groups, and so on, but it’s much harder. Just as the internet makes it so much easier for me to contact you and communicate/connect with you, it also makes it that much easier for me to lie to you.

I’d like to believe that our ability to sniff out imposters means that this despicable practice won’t take hold. But the price we pay for our willlingness to trust others — a requirement for us to be social — is our capacity for being made fools of. Does this mean that malevolent corporations will inevitably poison the well of conversation? Perhaps. But , if they do, we will together figure out ways to preserve our ability to talk within a circle of trust. Places like epinions.com and amazon.com already take some of the logical steps such as letting us see a person’s aggregated reviews.

But we haven’t taken the most significant step yet. So far, if we want product information, we seek out a discussion about that product. As a result, we’re mainly reading the views of strangers. The obvious solution to the trust problem is to seek out a discussion that starts with the people, not the product. We want to be able to consult our friends — real world or virtual — first: “I’m about to buy a digital camera? Any of you have any recommendations?” The “you” is the defining term here. And if the circle of “you”s doesn’t know much about digital cameras, consulting a second-degree circle would probably get you your answer.

I’ve been involved pretty deeply with a couple of startups that tried to enable just such conversations. They plunged over the Cliff of Business Models. But organizing the big scary Net around the circles of people you know in addition to around the topics you care about just makes too much sense not to happen someday. Soon.

Categories: Uncategorized dw