What Can You Trust? Let Twitter and Twine Help You Decide

In the Next-Gen Web, These Tools Provide Important Human Filters

Posted by Judy Shapiro on 06.18.09 @ 12:01 PM

Judy Shapiro

Much digital ink has been spent trying to explain the likes of Twitter and Twine. Often, they are characterized as the poster children of the Web 2.0 trend. Pundits wonder if they represent a new, democratized broadcast platform. Others imagine that they serve as the next-generation CRM tool. And skeptics believe we'll quickly dispense with these tech toys once the novelty is over.

Sure, there's an almost irrational exuberance in media's descriptions of these technologies -- either the media is very easily seduced when it comes to new technology (not a hard argument to make) or it senses these technologies represent an important trend taking shape beyond the current web 2.0 craze.

I come down on the side of the latter opinion. These technologies do represent something different but I couldn't articulate what that was until I had a recent conversation with some colleagues about Twine.

I explained I like Twine, which is like a version of Stumbleupon but with a big difference: The "results" are generated by people who you can identify and interact with. Twine is strengthened, enhanced and expanded by real people, creating a "search community" that becomes more relevant and trusted over time. The name says it all.

Twitter matters for the same reason. You can follow people whose opinion you trust. Or, you can share with your "followers" (aka your trusted community) what you think is useful, important, trusted. I attribute Twitter's popularity to the media friendly way reporters can get bite-sized updates from their "trusted sources," which is probably one reason why the Twitter scent carried so far and wide. Don't let the hype around Twitter obscure the value of this technology -- it is a means to receive or broadcast personal, relevant and, yes, trusted information.

And that's the "something different" I detect in these technologies: They revolve around trust. In today's Web 2.0 world, if "trust" comes up at all, it is usually thought of as a risk-mitigation factor, as in: "I need to be sure I can trust this person trying to friend me because I don't want to get scammed." But for this new web to materialize, trust will have to be transformed from a risk-mitigation attribute to a key driver for optimizing our personal, web experience. In essence, the next-gen web hinges on the next-gen kind of trust -- one that is a proactive, positive part of the web experience.

When thought of in this light, it becomes clear that the likes of Twitter, Twine and the many other forms of communities (from forums to bloggers to chat rooms) lies at the heart of how the next-gen web will accomplish its charter. Communities are attractive because they create trust through relevancy. Twitter and Twine provide a community-based filter to help sort through the deluge of data (after all, there are only so many "OMG, check this URL out" e-mails we can sort through). Forums provide a different kind of trust by letting users share experiences. And the sharp rise of bloggers' influence in the social-media celeb heap is proof of their power to create trusted communities.

As more and more people become more dependent on the internet, the community creation groundswell is one indication of how people are imaginatively and proactively filling the "trust gaps" (a phrase I gratefully attribute to Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO of Comodo). Twitter and Twine are variations of trusted communities and represent people's desire to create a personal, relevant web that will, increasingly, be a function of how people are able to create trust in their ever widening web world. They are the building blocks of the next-gen web -- the Trusted Web.

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Judy Shapiro is senior VP at Paltalk and has held senior marketing positions at Comodo, Computer Associates, Lucent Technologies, AT&T and Bell Labs. Her blog, Trench Wars, provides insights on how to create business value on the internet.

15 Comments

By fkempis | Valhall, NY June 18, 2009 02:30:05 pm:

I agree with the skeptics and believe we'll quickly dispense with these tech toys once the novelty is over, but they are building blocks none the less.

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By AdExpert | New York, NY June 18, 2009 02:36:06 pm:

Interesting point. It is becoming more and more important to get information from trusted sources. I often read content that friends on social networking sites suggest. This is very relevant to today's social networking experience.

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By psh | New York, NY June 18, 2009 02:38:27 pm:

I think you raise some very interesting points specifically Communities and trust. I think traditionally communities succeed because of a positive reinforcement of trust.

Though we still function as individuals we are ultimately answerable to our community.

Any tool or medium that facilitates the flow of information and accountability within a community benefits and enhances the community. As these technological tools become available, we see people playing with them with great enthusiasm this may be our inherent human nature to desire to be part of and participate in a social order and/or community.

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By neiludavis | Atlanta, GA June 18, 2009 02:39:44 pm:

I think that Twine can be successful, because it includes multiple avenues for discovering the information that you want to find. I agree - in one sense, it's like StumbleUpon because you can see what other people have added to the topic-base - and multiple people are involved in the rating of sites. But Twine takes is a step further and allows you to comment and rate on a variety of things, not just websites, but specific restaurants, fashion, etc - and sharing that with your community in one place. Pretty cool stuff - I'd be interested to see if it actually succeeds or not.

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By madarnell | New York, NY June 18, 2009 02:50:49 pm:

I agree with the fact that trust is at the heart of the development of such web worlds, since it is the essence of the proliferation of these connection-based communities.

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By holyjack | New York, NY June 18, 2009 02:55:54 pm:

True. I think it is all about trust. The reason why I use one social networking site over the other is because of the safety feeling... One just feels safer than the other.

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By dimashny | New York, NY June 18, 2009 03:20:21 pm:

Good point. I have been following the events in Iran on Twitter and I don't know whom to trust as there are so many accounts of what is happening and many of the accounts contradict each other. Wish there was a way to create a trusted list of sources.

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By ajasie | New York, NY June 18, 2009 05:05:38 pm:

I am not familiar with Twine but as an active Tweeter I love the ability to share what I think are interesting thoughts or stories as well as receive them. I also think Twitter does a good job in policing their product from the spammers. Like most people, Tweeting gives instant gratification in getting something off one's chest. I thought 140 characters would be limiting but with URL compression you can easily share a story on the web and still have room for a comment. I have also linked it up to both my Facebook and FriendFeed
accounts where I can cross share with my other Social Media accounts. I use Tweet Deck as my program of choice which facilitates the sharing.

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By HarveyMasser | oakland, CA June 18, 2009 10:00:43 pm:

Judy - Is it coincidence that trust, Twitter and Twine all begin with "T" (hehe)?

I do think that social networks that are trusted are the ones that succeed because they are far "stickier". Contrast the fate of Myspace versus Facebook. Key ingredient to Facebook's success was that is was built on the premise of a trusted school network.

You make a compelling point.

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By reportergary | New York, NY June 19, 2009 06:52:16 am:

Ultimately it's up to us, the users of the web, to determine who or what we trust.

Twitter is hot in the news right now as the number one conduit of information from Iran. In my position as an Internet news talk host, I have to vet information posted and assess its veracity before passing it on to my audience (or I lose that very same trust to which Judy speaks). A colleague at the BBC agrees that close examination of postings helps us determine the veracity of the report.

I don't think Twitter, by the way, will "flame out." It's fast becoming a valuable tool for the sharing of information.

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By Joseph | Baltimore, MD June 19, 2009 10:07:43 am:

I never thought of Twine or twitter as communities. I think what really drives them is their ability to let people connect with each other – not trust. But I c where you are going with this.

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By JudyGShapiro | new york, NY June 19, 2009 10:25:47 am:

Well, that's my point. People use "communities" to connect with others – but meaningful connections (aka – ones that are sticky) must be trusted.

Today, trust is not front of center of our digital lives. In the future it must be as our reliance on the internet grows.

That's why trusted communities matter – they help us proactively navigate our way through the internet with more trust.

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By Gene w. | Atlanta, GA June 19, 2009 06:01:36 pm:

So Judy – tell me how it would work. This notion of "transforming" trust is a nice thought – but lacks practicality. Many community sites and networks have no trust whatsoever – nor do I see that it is necessary.

I do see how some communities are more valuable than others because they are trusted, e.g LinkedIn. But that's as far as I go.

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By nickntime | LA, CA June 20, 2009 10:07:32 pm:

I get it -- but I bet no one at Twitter or Twine would agree with you here. You could a lot about what they are -- but trusted would not be top of the list.

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By JudyGShapiro | new york, NY June 20, 2009 11:42:19 pm:

I understand why many of you think a Twitter or Twine community is no more about trust than the trust one may attribute to a flyer being handed on a busy street corner.

But that is really my point. No one does associate trust with any of these newer, organically created communities. And I contend that as the Internet is more pervasive in the nitty gritty of daily life, trust will become far more central to our online experience.

The question remains how will that happen. Still working on that though. But I sense the first line of trust in this newly emerging web will be within our communities. It's what happens in the real world. It's bound to apply to the web world too.

Judy Shapiro

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