Indorse.io Gives Credibility Back To Social Brands
Do you ever feel like someone is bullshitting you? Like, someone posts on social media and you can't help but be like "Mmmmm, nuh uh. That doesn't seem correct." You know this person. What they're claiming seems inflated or just wrong. But you can't do anything about except ignore it, unfollow them or maybe report them to the site administrator if they're doing something really heinous. But, what's the point? Taking extra action maybe helps whatever social network you're using, but does it help you? Not really.
One of the problems with centralized web services as we experience them in relation to social media and the identities created on them is that they'll often lean to far one way or another in terms of privacy/anonymity and transparency. There are some good privacy solutions that deal with encryption and don't take personal data from their users at any point. This is pretty cool and has a place, but the concept of a social network being social and a network means that identity has a place of importance if it's to carry into the real world.
This is the quandary of personal branding. By "building your brand" you are, in essence, fashioning a story about yourself that you really want the rest of the world to know about. There's nothing inherently wrong with this (obviously, I run and have ran this and other blogs as a personal branding experiments). Who doesn't love a good story anyways? The problem is that sometimes on the internet, if a tree falls, nobody will hear it. Or, in other words, if you stretch the truth about yourself or something you talk about, you can mitigate the chances of getting called out in any meaningful way. Even if you do get called out, there's little of consequence that can happen to you aside from getting your account suspended, or losing followers. So, as far as incentives go - there's a greater incentive to tell a really great story that's going to net benefit you, even if it is a lie, than there is to tell the truth.
Indorse.io Helps You Keep These Folks Out Of Your Network
That's a big nut to crack and a tough problem to fix across the internet, but there are people trying their best to focus on one aspect of managing your own reputation as sort of a portable asset on the web, but also making sure that's actually verified through confirmation of other people in your network. The fine folks at Indorse.io are making it possible to quantify with real accuracy and confidence the reputation validity of someone's digital personality.
I won't go into too much detail about the project besides saying that if you read the whitepaper or FAQ on their site and you have a general understanding of what Ethereum is useful for, you should get the concept pretty quickly. Indorse also addresses how they compare to other social networking sites based on blockchain already as well here on their blog.
A Bit About How I Got To Know This Team
A couple years ago I was getting familiar with the new Ethereum blockchain project which just had come online with a main net and people were - to put it lightly - excited. I saw lots of really cool use-cases cropping up where people were able to model and execute ideas using this new type of blockchain. They were doing things that Bitcoin in theory was also supposed to be able to do - someday. But Ethereum was working, even in its early stages.
The first use case that got me really excited and made me want to learn to write smart contracts and deploy them to the EVM was a prenuptial agreement pegged into immortality on the Ethereum blockchain. It was written by Guarang Torvekar of Attores in Singapore. Attores was also run by the CEO David Moskowitz, who I've come to know as well since meeting Guarang - both of whom are very active community members in Singapore and the larger Asian blockchain scene. I was blogging at the time and reached out to Guarang to write an article about his pet project and learn about why he did it. The fact that I was also myself engaged to be married to my now wife at the time made me excited because this was an actual real world, relatable, actionable use of the Ethereum blockchain.
Too often do we get wrapped up in high-minded ideas of systems that won't and can't operate in the real world for several years into the future. It's important to have visionaries working for the future - certainly that's more of what gets hardcore Ethereum devs excited. But applications that regular, non engineers can use and appreciate are what will help drive Ethereum into mainstream adoption - not just through the price of Ether going higher (which isn't so meaningful). But rather, if people can use applications which affect them in a tangible way and make their lives better and also happen to be built on Ethereum - that is what will drive the ecosystem and technology as a whole forward and will usher in even more advancements in the capabilities and scope of what is possible.
Ok, enough psychobabble
If you'd like to learn more about Indorse, I suggest checking out their website, reading their blog, or joining their Slack to ask the guys a question directly about when Indorse will have an Alpha released and how you can become an early user. They also plan to integrate with Status when the project is accepting additions, so stay tuned for that as well. Say hello to me as I help them out with some community management during the Western Hemisphere hours when they're sleeping in Singapore.
Post originally appeared on my blog http://ournextblock.com