Trust me, I'm a total stranger

The world is fast dividing into two types of people. First, there are those who fear that even writing the word ‘‘MasterCard’’ in an email will result in their bank accounts being emptied by Nigerian scammers. Then there are those who breathe the digital environment like oxygen – who have never been inside a bank branch, who chat with friends without talking and who will cheerfully buy from, sell to and make payments to people they have never met, regardless of the country they live in. What separates one group from the other is neither age nor fashion sense; neither geography nor education. The magic ingredients in the new online economy are confidence and trust. A social network strategist for World Communities Consulting, Laurel Papworth, says the world is moving towards a ‘‘trust economy’’ where the technology is creating a sense of security that is even stronger than a handshake and eyeballing the other person over a latte. ‘‘It is just so naive to say that you can’t trust people online – people are developing their judgment and we’re learning new skills,’’ Papworth says. ‘‘It is an important part of this economy that we like to be seen as respectable, responsible and as a leader. So we are learning what to look out for and we’re becoming increasingly secure about our status online as we put more information about ourselves out there.’’ The combination of experience, confi-dence and clever technical developments means a raft of new activities are becoming commonplace online, including commis-sioning consultants, contracting handymen and even effecting cultural exchanges that make the old ways we came to trust each other seem silly. ‘‘People now have their entire lives online, including their work portfolio, their history, relationships and personal values – and you get a recruiter in the real world, for example, saying they just need a two-page resume to determine if you’re suitable or not for a job,’’ Papworth says. ‘‘You tell me which is the better way to determine if someone is a fit.’’ Robert Finkeldey is the founder of Australian website WhoCanDo.com.au, which allows home owners to post reno-vation or maintenance jobs and tradesmen to put in quotes and bid for the work. Initially, Finkeldey thought it would attract those wanting work done for less than $10,000 but the site recently posted a job for $200,000 and the Victorian Build-ing Commission is using it for quotes for rebuilding work in its fire-ravaged areas. ‘‘Our entire website is built around the issue of trust on the internet,’’ Finkeldey says. ‘‘Tradesmen have to register with an email address and provide a mobile phone number. They then get [a text message] with a code, which they enter to verify their identity. Tradesmen need to have a builder’s licence and registration numbers, so we ask them to upload those and we confirm their status once we’ve seen them.’’ As is the case with other sites, WhoCanDo users can rate the tradesman, who pays a commission when a job is won. But Finkeldey says it is the work done before-hand that makes the ratings meaningful. ‘‘Most of what is running on the internet at the moment is based on email verifi-cation alone,’’ he says. ‘‘But it is really easy to get an email address – you can create hundreds of thousands of them for free and no one would know. And it is no real ‘Technology is creating a sense of security that is even stronger than a handshake.’ Laurel Papworth, social network strategist security. If you get a bad review, you can just re-register under a different name. Our system ensures that can’t happen. ‘‘It means you get the same reputation online as a good word-of-mouth referral but ... when you put it all together online you actually get a greater degree of transparency than you get in the real world. How many people do you know who actually ask to sight insurance certificates and builder’s registration papers?’’ Third-party verification is also the magic ingredient in another online phenomena, CouchSurfers.com. The site is a world-wide network that allows travellers to crash for nothing on each other’s couches. CouchSurfers.com might sound like a ‘‘murdered in their beds’’ headline waiting to happen but the site claims more than 900,000 successful couch surfing and hosting experiences, and more than 1.8 million positive experiences from 232 countries and more than 55,000 cities around the world. It was started when the site’s founder, Casey Fenton, bought a cheap ticket to Iceland. Not wanting to stay in a hotel, he spammed 1500 univer-sity students in Reykjavik asking if he could stay with them and spent the holiday with locals showing him ‘‘their’’ town. At its heart, CouchSurfers.com is a hier-archical trust network of referrals and recommendations. While anyone can join, to become a member you need to have your contact details verified but additional, deeper trust can be developed by being vouched for by other members of the network and even becoming a Couch-Surfing Ambassador. You don’t get to knock on someone’s door and demand: ‘‘Hey, I want to crash on your couch.’’ Upon entering your desti-nation, the site will give an indication of how many hosts are nearby. Those hosts are contacted and asked to check out your profile. If they like the look of you, they make the offer of a bed, or perhaps a coffee. If you like the sound of them, you get to meet. The higher your reputation, the more likely you are to find a bed but hosts are never under pressure. Taking the pressure off is proving the secret to burgeoning freelance site Elance.com, which allows employers to post contract work for freelancers in marketing, communications, multimedia, law, engin-eering and finance. The site’s users bid for work and employers can then check out their credentials, see references and their portfolio before choosing the best. The site builds trust by managing the communication process and payment through an escrow system that is tied to project milestones. The chief marketing officer at Elance, Brad Porteous, says the site launched in the 1990s but needed people to evolve before it took off. ‘‘People’s instincts have honed compared to 10 years ago,’’ he says. ‘‘They are very in-tune to things that they should avoid and the level of information they need to feel secure to transact online.’’ Elance claims to have more than 80,000 experts online and 60,000 companies have hired an Elancer in the past six months. The site has made $73 million in payments in the past 12 months. Australia is its fifth-largest user with 15,000 unique cookies in the past 30 days. ‘‘In any freelance commission, communi-cation is key to getting things done and having a good working relationship,’’ Porteous says. ‘‘As an employer, the site lets me demonstrate to the freelancer that I have got the money and I am really going to pay. On the flip side, I am not sending money in the form of a deposit because even though it’s a smaller amount, I may never see any work for it.’’ There is also a mediation service for projects that go wrong. Porteous points out that only 1 per cent of transactions end up in mediation. ‘‘Australians get it,’’ he says. ‘‘If people see that you have a transparent process that deals with their concerns, trust follows.’’

Published in Spectrum, in The Sydney Morning Herald, May 2, 2009