[ALUmnus]

I thought this was a really interesting article from Wired, which has turned into one of the few publications that are still worth reading. It's crazy to think that you can actually build your financial and professional reputation with what you contribute online. I feel sorry for some of you.

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive ... on-economy

Welcome to the new reputation economy
Imagine a world where banks take into account your online reputation alongside traditional credit ratings to determine your loan; where headhunters hire you based on the expertise you've demonstrated on online forums such as Quora; where your status from renting a house through Airbnb helps you become a trusted car renter on WhipCar; where your feedback on eBay can be used to get a head-start selling on Etsy; where traditional business cards are replaced by profiles of your digital trustworthiness, updated in real-time. Where reputation data becomes the window into how we behave, what motivates us, how our peers view us and ultimately whether we can or can't be trusted.

Welcome to the reputation economy, where your online history becomes more powerful than your credit history.

The value of reputation is not a new concept to the online world: think star ratings on Amazon, PowerSellers on eBay or reputation levels on games such as World of Warcraft. The difference today is our ability to capture data from across an array of digital services. With every trade we make, comment we leave, person we "friend", spammer we flag or badge we earn, we leave a trail of how well we can or can't be trusted.

An aggregated online reputation having a real-world value holds enormous potential for sectors where trust is fractured: banking; e-commerce, where value is exponentially increased by knowing who someone really is; peer-to-peer marketplaces, where a high degree of trust is required between strangers; and where a traditional approach based on disjointed information sources is currently inefficient, such as recruiting.