TrustCloud aims to be like a credit rating, only for interpersonal trust. As you can imagine, if such a thing worked (and was, itself, trustworthy) it could be very useful when deciding to hire or sell or buy something. How, exactly, does TrustCloud work? Using their own proprietary algorithms, TrustCloud claims it can measure your trustworthiness by analyzing your activity across a variety of websites, especially ones where transactions take place, like rental and product sharing sites. Naturally, of course it also taps into sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
It’s all still rather new, and the idea is an intriguing one. If you check out my blog’s sidebar, at the bottom is my TrustBadge showing off my TrustScore. TrustScore is supposed to go between 1 and 1,000, with 1,000 being the best. I can’t even imagine how horrible you’d have to be try and get a 1. I just barely created my profile and got a rating considered “good” (which is above “Average” but not as awesome as “Very Good” or “Excellent,” which is the highest bracket.
One thing I didn’t mention in the video is that you get limited points to spend endorsing the trustworthiness of others in various categories. Because the number of points is extremely limited, you can’t just go around spamming and trading these with other people in order to artificially jack up your TrustScore (and defeating the whole purpose). If you sign up for TrustCloud and see people you know there, it might really make their day to be endorsed by you.
I can see how this could be useful to a freelancer or service professional. You may be using one of the sites which integrates with TrustCloud (or may in the future). The success of TrustCloud will depend on the number of sites with which it can integrate, such as major freelancer job hubs, or perhaps even dating sites (although that’s hardly relevant to business blogging). Overall I’d say it’s worth checking out.
