We are really open for any criticism and questions. If you have any in mind, please contact us. Currently we are focusing on b2b market, so we wont be seen on the press much.

I like your metaphor a lot. I have been thinking that whuffie shouldn't be a 'limited resource', in the sense that there is a hard limit on how much you can 'give' to people, on the basis that if you were too profligate with your giving it would be devalued anyway. The notion of damping inflation and gaming by linking it to some renewable but finite and non-physical resource, especially one so personal, is very interesting.

Thanks for the heads up on the openid issues, I'll try and take a look at it soon.

ps. talking of anchoring to real identities - commenting with openid here didn't work, it said it couldn't find openid info in my url (http://danbri.org/)

As with most problems, its important to separate the what (are you trying to answer) from the how (you are going to answer it). Picking some of the key data points that make up a reputation or recommendation (whether online or offline) will ultimately determine the contribution of the various techniques you have identified. It might be something that requires an iterative approach to solving the problem; one where users can give you feedback on what is (or isn't) working for them. That kind of mass experiment sounds interesting. Keep us posted ....

I think you're absolutely right that there is a lot of relevant stuff out there that's not web-centric. And it's important to keep in mind the personal, even intimate, nature of what makes up our social capital. Some of that might not be stuff we are comfortable sharing publicly. But hopefully something web-centric can both accommodate altruism and cooperation that actually happens online (and off), and perhaps extend the reach of where we can 'use' social capital instead of money. Perhaps you could think of it as a global LETS scheme?

I think of social capital as my ability to offer info people might need, skills I can give for nothing (like computer stuff, music or my time in any way), offer food or have a meal at someone else's house, to have someone to call if something goes wrong, someone to borrow eggs off etc. It's very personal and not something I'd like to quantify or put up on a celebdaq style site, much less quantify as a single number. Some technologies are disruptive that way though, and can lead to cultural/social changes that make make it all more acceptable..

I do see though that when a complex system like global finance reduces it's ability to support people, they turn to social capital, and it actually becomes a more efficient system than money: getting furniture off freecycle or making friends with neighbours for babysitting than shopping at habitat or paying a babysitter for example, makes more sense in a world where people don't have that much money. One of the saddest things about economic collapses in the past, to me, has been when even the social capital has been stopped by the lack of money - although when this happened in Argentina almost 10 years ago, some factories just carried on producing as temporary co-operatives. I think there's a lot you can research that's not just recent web centric ideas. Barter systems can emerge quite quickly, from studies I've seen of refugee camp economics for example. My own ancestors, the Aymara, who lived in the andes before the Incas, had a long established system of trade and trust that didn't involve money, only social capital - as you got older and less capable to fend for yourself, you'd ideally accumulate that capital. I think most agrarian societies would have had something like this at some point.

But I wonder, are we thinking the right way about social capital and what it should do or mean? Should it be fuzzy or precise? The same pyramid shaped view of finance vs social capital means poorer people are more likely to rely more on the latter, and are also probably on the other side of the digital divide. Also, who will pay for these systems, as data centre bills go up? - unless they actually lead to much more efficiency and access to info that people can use in the basic aspects of their livelihood...

Ale