Backtrailing an in-bound link, I run across the happenin' meme of whuffie, a sort of social-cred and karma scoring system originated in Cory Doctorow's novel 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.' (I haven't read it yet, but it just went on the next-rainy-weekend reading queue.) [Update: I'm halfway through it. It's a great yarn, but I stand by my opinion here.]

I'm only chiming in because the meme seems to be mutating in misleading ways. Here we have the Guardian calling it a 'currency of respect', and the in-bound cited above suggested a sort of 'VC whuffie.' Hold on a minute here:

A currency by definition is fungible. Trust and social-cred are definitely not fungible. Let's try a thought experiment. Patrick Ruffini and Josh Marshall are both prolific and articulate bloggers of the political sort. Surely they each deserve some karma points for all the good work? Ah, but their viewpoints and those of their readers are diametrically opposed. Do you think a currency from the First Bank of TalkingPoints is going to be good at the 'Publican Inn'?

Some empirical evidence: The PGP web of trust idea has been around for about a decade. It hasn't exactly set the world on fire. One of the issues (IMHO) is that just because I trust Jane's credibility and competence, doesn't mean I extend that to her acquaintences, and certainly not any further.

Gang, if it's not associative, and it's not transitive, it sure as hell isn't fungible. The currency mututation is just misleading.

Why do I bring this up? Well the Valley has a way of mutating science fiction into business plans, and vice versa. It's downright incestuous, and sometimes it gets into trouble. Care to guess how many dollars were wasted and lives screwed around due to the compelling vision of Snow Crash? This one has the same smell to this old dog, so I just thought I'd mention it.
11:44:56 AM    

I haven't seen the project described here yet, but it sounds like a well-founded attempt to create an IM product based on how kids and others actually use the medium to create personal networks. Also a substantial break with Microsoft's normal positioning of their IM offerings as business productivity tools. Keep an eye on this one. If you see it being connected to cellular SMS systems, and youth targeted promotional deals with carriers, that would be serious evidence of clues at work.
10:41:28 AM