Better Blog Bureau
This is a response to Alex Barnett’s comments on “Drive-by blogging“…
I propose this: We should set up a Better Blog Bureau.
- Just as sites like eBay and Pricegrabber allow people to rate vendors, people could use the BBB to rate bloggers. Complaints / beefs would have to be specific, pointing to a blog item URL. (To be truly useful, though, the BBB should cache the page for reference.) This would also be a handy mechanism for people whistle-blowing on the mainstream media for faking photographs, etc.
- Bloggers could have an account at the BBB to claim their blogs, and thus be able to respond to complaints.
- The key to getting it used would be promotion by the A-Listers with a BBB badge on their sites.
- The idea is to make the BBB badge something people will want to display on their site as a show of quality and accountability.
- Provide a nice REST-ful API to let the mashup types get access to the raw data. A tie-in to Technorati would be sweet.
- Provide a FeedBurner Feedflare to let members show their BBB rating at the bottom of every item.
- Potential downside is mob-rule, as with everything on the Net.
- Aggregators and search engines could offer to filter out blogs that don’t have a BBB account, or whose BBB rating is below a certain threshold.
Lazy Web: Make it so! (Or fund it for me, heh.)
August 11th, 2006 at 06:14
interesting…hasn’t someone tried this already? And, would this really deter reckless blogging? What would the benefit(s) be for the ‘honest’ blogger beyond the karmic ‘rules’ in operation today? How would you avoid gaming? How would you avoid mobbing?
August 11th, 2006 at 14:35
Has someone tried it? Dunno.
As to whether it would really deter reckless blogging, I doubt it. I doubt regulation would work (as in the Korea example on your site) across borders in the West.
The Better Business Bureau doesn’t deter bad business, but it does provide a mechanism for companies to say, “We want to be accountable, so do business with us.”
The Better Blog Bureau wouldn’t deter bad blogging, but perhaps it might become a way for people to recognize the difference between a blogger who cares about his/her reputation, and the drive-by types.
Granted, this is purely all social-pressure stuff. But we’ve seen user ratings work on eBay, Amazon, and other places. The susceptibility to mobbing is similar to those sites.
Would it work? I really couldn’t say. But my guess is that drive-by blogging will never go away. Slander and libel are as old as humanity. But for many bloggers, their reputation is important to them… we should take (positive) advantage of that to separate the honorable from the trolls.
August 12th, 2006 at 01:26
Mark,
I think it’s a great idea - to have some sort of “certified” blogs.
One challenge is that, in my view, Better Business Bureau assesses firms based on how well they provide a specific type of social value - more specifically, deliver stated goods or services of a stated quality at a stated price within a stated period of time. How do we define this social value for blogs?
Another challenge - if a blog is offensive to others, should we automatically be striking it with a negative rating or refusing to “certify” it? It could be that this blog serves as some kind of a cultural watchdog, and it is in its nature to be extremely critical of others. Or it could just be a “tabloid-style” blog
August 31st, 2006 at 23:13
Wow, this idea is awesome. But yeah, i guess it will only stay be dream