Reputation
The short timeframe of the Applied Dreams leaves a lot of open ends and unexplored paths. If you’ve listened to my presentation, or viewed the slides, or even done both, I’m curious to know if you think there are any points which need or could use expansion?
For example:
- Joining the service—we began this project with a certain brief which enabled us to jump right into the service as if it’s existed for quite some time. But convincing people to join and to share or rent their objects is a challenge, and one which requires some thought, research, and experimentation to solve.
- Verification—how do you know someone has a certain reputation? How can you verify or confirm his or her standing? And how do you know that all the information is correct or wasn’t manipulated? In the AD project, my assumption was that just like in real life, you will lose your ability to borrow things if you behave poorly. I’d like to take a closer look at this issue, because it may be external to the project, or it may be critical. Specifically, if someone gets the short end of the stick in a transaction with someone else, will their mistrust and disappointment be aimed solely at the individual, or will the service come into the picture as well? My thought is that this system is very much like the stock market. It’s just making visible existing information that you can’t see at the moment. So, like the stock market and the tools used to analyze it, reactions to poor performance might not be associated with the tools.
- Time – This was cut short by the timeframe of the project. I think it’s important to distinguish between things you did in the past and your most recent behavior. As a college student, you might have gotten drunk a lot, but as a businessman in a Fortune 500 company maybe you’ve changed your ways (or maybe not). Taking time into consideration is important because it reflects changes in your lifestyle and trends: maybe this isn’t the best time of the month to lend you money, because you’ve historically been really bad at returning it within the timeframe I’ve requested.
- Further applications: can a reputation management system be used outside of the framework of renting and borrowing? Having a reputation for recommending other people is immediately conducive to employment situations, for example.
Any more that you can think of?