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  • 13th June 2009 - By Michael Beddows
    Online and offline reputation

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    If I had one million Twitter connections and walked into your store, would you treat me differently? Would I get better customer service?

    If I didn’t get good service.. If I was unhappy in anyway.. I might decide to share that negative experience with a couple hundred thousand of my online “friends”. And then tens of thousands more of them might chime in with similar experiences. And that wouldn’t be good.

    Of course, negative spin eventually blows over, but what would the financial impact of such an event be?

    Having millions of connections is no longer far fetched. The power of twitter connections is a function of the senders reputation and the receivers receptibility. Many weak connections can create critical mass of opinion and influence decision making.

    And so, if my cell phone, MID, or tablet broadcast my social media stats, would that change the buying experience at all?


    • Today the stores have scanners at the exits to see you have not stolen anything. In future they will have scans at the entrance to scan your online ID, reputation and number of followers. They will subsequently act accordingly. ......

      Great article.
      ^Jos
    • Thanks Jos, you raise a good point! If Southwest Airlines had used such a device, perhaps they would have reacted differently to Kevin Smith...

      Since I wrote this post, I've been thinking a lot more about celebrity, influence, and relationship capital. In the past, being a celebrity was enough to have significant influence. We're moving to the point, if we haven't already, where influence is measurable and can easily take you to celebrity status. What concerns me is that I believe neither celebrity nor measured influence should lead to special treatment.

      I'd like to see a world where reputation does lead to special treatment, but where reputation is measured by one's positive contributions to the world. Hard to measure, for sure.. But I can see that day coming quickly..
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