Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records.

It is important to recognize that reputation is a manyfold and plural element, strongly dependent on context. The reputation in eBay, based on the trustworthyness of the financial and material transactions, cannot be simply equated with the reputation obtained in Linux through one’s expertise and engagement in the project, or to one’s quality as a host in a mailing list.

Rapleaf’s goal is to make it more profitable to be ethical. Rapleaf is the only email-based reputation lookup on the web. We encourage you to lookup people’s Rapleaf reputation before transacting, hiring, or even interacting with them. We also encourage you to endorse your friends and leave feedback on buyers and sellers.

Discussion: Well, this is a fine pass we've come to… now I can either make nice or anyone who doesn't like rough edges gets to put a BAD SEED into my REPUTATION basket, or whatever, and then the Politeness Police make sure I am marginalized. Or I can be all sweetness and lite, even totally vacuous and become influential because I say the right things. Wow, you guys are a piece of work. And you even sell the Trust System (because it is, after all, all about selling, isn't it? You even got a name for it from Marketing I bet.) (I can feel those BAD SEEDS accumulating already!) as a wonderful new development. I am impressed! I wonder how many good and creative people will resign because you have introduced a new element of coercion into the mix. Oh well…

Nobody knows you're a dog on the Web--or a mechanic, athlete, hacker, marketing whiz, zealot, or SQL programmer. That is, unless you tell them. In which case, they may or may not believe you, and they have few options for verifying your credentials anyway.