Trust It does matter...

We are and live online.

We buy, sell, exchange, lend and use millions of stuff online.

We work hard to build a good reputation as a seller on eBay.

We are well known and respected on LinkedIN.

We leave a trail, a reputation trail, all over the internet.

We would like to be able to present our reputation when trying to get a loan on Zopa or bid on a task in TaskRabbit.

When you behave as expected or help others, more reputation capital you earn. And more reputation capital allows you to keep doing the things you like to do online. In a growing peer-to-peer online community and with the advent of Collaborative Consumption, facilitating online trust between strangers will be paramount.

Power and influence will shift largely to those people with the best reputations and trust networks, from people with money and nominal power.

Craig Newmark