iKarma. Take one dash of eBay feedback, a little dash of Whuffie and you’ve got an online referral scheme that is…well…brave. Will it work, good peeps? Tune in this time next year and let’s see, shall we?
Online or offline, in business or among friends, your reputation says everything about you – who you are, what you do, and what others think about you. The strength of a good name is the finest marketing that money can’t buy. iKarma.com provides all the tools you need to document and promote your reputation with trust and convenience. In just a few minutes, you can begin harnessing the value of your reputation to strengthen your customer base and grow your business.
Oh yes, perfect; the first ones that will use this scheme are rings of spammers, swamping the system and driving out reliable parties, rendering the system useless immediately.
Where spammers are concerned I fully understand your skepticism. However I think you will find that we�ve built iKarma.com with human security features that make iKarma.com a poor choice as a target for spammers. Human verification, challenge response, spam reporting, new post notification, link removal and post limits are all built into the system. These features make iKarma a far less attractive target than blogs like this one or the millions of chat rooms and boards with less robust security. They should also help keep it clean and free of excess spam. Like eBay and Amazon, the reputation engine built into iKarma gives consumers the confidence they need when making a buying decision. But unlike eBay and Amazon the reputations on iKarma can actually make a difference in your life and your business. I think we would all agree that it is nice that we can buy books and widgets from vendors across the world with confidence. But the $100 we might spend is small when compared to the value of knowing the iKarma reputation of your swimming pool contractor, your stockbroker or even the guy you hired to build your web site. These are reputations that can effect your life. I love eBay and Amazon, but if you want to make my life better show me a reputable car mechanic or a responsible baby sitter who knows CPR. These a reputations that I will gladly pay a premium for. With iKarma.com, good people with good reputations finally have a tool they can use to gain the money, clients and respect they deserve. Try it, you�ll like it.
Paul, thanks for commenting here and sorry if I came across a little snarky. :-) Fact is, it's a great idea, and one that as you so rightly say the world could do with. Everyone has their fair share of rip off service stories, and if iKarma (nice name by the way, although if you were going to be totally trendy I would have suggested iKarmr – grin) can help then that's great.
The one problem I see going forward is getting enough traction to make it hang together. With eBay you really *have* to give feedback in order to progress your eBay 'career' so to speak. With iKarma I don't see an imperative for anyone to give feedback. Unless, of course, the suppliers offer a discount for anyone giving a reference. Still, a nice idea and I wish you well with it. And we'll see how spam free you've kept it when we revisit, eh? :-)