Trust needs to be earned

After the discussion we had in class last week I was curious about trust on the internet. On which aspects do we base our trust in online people?

I found this really interesting article about trust and social networking. According the Charles H. Green there are four archetypes: Zagat’s, Amazon, eBay, and LinkedIn. I think we all know those websites and they all four have found another way to gain trust.

"1. Zagat's started off-line. It presents reviews by the "regular folks"—we trust it because the reviewers are presumably unbiased, in a way that commercial directories presumably aren’t. Zagat’s gains trust through clean motives of “people like me.”

2. Amazon has a recommender system—we trust it because we believe their massive databases dependably predict our likes.

3. eBay developed seller ratings. You can trust the person you buy from online because of their reputation among other previous buyers.

3. LinkedInnetworks you to others by degrees of separation (a la the Kevin Bacon game) to others. You know Bill, I know you, ergo you can introduce me to Bill’s cousin’s friend. This works on the principle of personal relationships."

On http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/118/Trust-and-Social-Networking you can find the whole article. I think it's really useful to read what makes us trust people online. Because in class it was really unclear about our reasons to trust someone online.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did!