{"id":1743,"date":"2009-01-12T23:25:20","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T23:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ewanspence.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/12\/openid-jonathan-ross-and-the-reputation-game-on-twitter\/"},"modified":"2009-01-12T23:43:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T23:43:39","slug":"openid-jonathan-ross-and-the-reputation-game-on-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/01\/openid-jonathan-ross-and-the-reputation-game-on-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenID, Jonathan Ross and the Reputation Game on Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somebody is going to do a killer presentation at a conference in 2009 in regards to identity on Twitter<\/a> and what it can teach us about authentication (*). <\/p>\n

Why? Because as Twitter has started to ramp up, more and more \u2018celebrities\u2019 are using the service. At the same time, more people are pretending to be celebrities and using false names and accounts, which really muddies the water as to who you can trust.<\/p>\n

Probably the first major UK name on Twitter was Stephen Fry<\/a>. A noted technophile (the second Mac ever in the UK was his), he arrived on Twitter, and within a few tweets everyone seemed sure that it really was him with no PR muffle on. But could we be sure?<\/p>\n

Once he placed his Twitter stream on his website<\/a>, we were all pretty convinced (Hmm, using a web page to confirm your identity? That might catch on).<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t an option available to all. Not every \u2018star\u2019 has a website they can use to verify to people, and remember that you still need to trust the website to trust the person on the site saying it is really them.<\/p>\n

And then Jonathan Ross<\/a> arrived<\/p>\n

Quietly, with little fanfare, the @wossy<\/a> account started up. No shouting, no brazen \u201cI\u2019m here,\u201d just someone who wanted to explore Twitter and get to know how it worked and how the people already signed up were using it.<\/p>\n

The problem of authenticating Ross arose in the minds of many \u2013 not me, because someone I knew vouched that it was Ross. Good enough for me<\/em>, I thought\u2026 and it was also good enough for people who knew me to be confident it was Ross as well.<\/p>\n

Once we reached herd authenticity<\/em> (*) Ross picked up another role (and I suspect a cape to go with it). He became the TCA\u2026 Twitter Celeb Authenticator!<\/strong> Witness these tweets, as he unmasks injustice, fake names, the real deal and Old Man Withers from the Haunted Amusement Park:<\/p>\n

\n

Just spoke to Alan Carr – he is on Twitter and does it himself, not via a PA or Agent. He is calling me back with his Twitter name later. #<\/a> (@AlanCarr<\/a> btw)<\/p>\n

Jimmy [Carr]\u2019s account is genuine but he doesn’t do the answering. #<\/a> <\/p>\n

Imposter update. Real Frankie Boyle not on Twitter . Says he might start though. #<\/a> <\/p>\n

Will resume detective work later. Am off to sue The Telegraph. Bye #<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This might seem like navel gazing, but providing easy to understand explanations for technologies like OpenID is vital to getting over just how useful they are. I think that Twitter is going to be a great case study given that a huge amount of the quality of the service relies on reputation and authenticity. Anyone care to volunteer?<\/p>\n

But it leads to one delightful vision – Jonathan Ross as a practical example of Web 2.0. Nobody tell The Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(*) Oh all right then, if nobody else does it, I\u2019ll give it a go at <\/em>BarCamp Austin<\/em><\/a> during this year\u2019s SXSW Interactive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(*) Herd Authenticity. When a sufficient number of people in a crowd agree that someone is who they say they are, then that person is deemed to be authenticated<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Update: And as if by magic, The Guardian have a list of people they think are authentic on Twitter list<\/a>, with the caveat that it might<\/em> be their PR staffers doing the writing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somebody is going to do a killer presentation at a conference in 2009 in regards to identity on Twitter and what it can teach us about authentication (*). Why? Because as Twitter has started to ramp up, more and more \u2018celebrities\u2019 are using the service. At the same time, more people are pretending to be celebrities and using false names and accounts, which really muddies the water as to who you can trust. Probably the first major UK name on Twitter was Stephen Fry. A noted technophile (the second Mac ever in the UK was his), he arrived on Twitter,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[53,685,52],"tags":[689,686,688,687,690,86,87],"class_list":["post-1743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs-and-blogging","category-twitter-web-20","category-web-2point0","tag-authenticity","tag-daily-mail","tag-jonathan-ross","tag-openid","tag-reputation","tag-sxsw","tag-twitter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Gl0-s7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}