March 9th, 2007
If others think poorly or well of you (personally or professionally), TheGORB.com will tell you
Are you comfortable with who you are? Well, you might not be after taking a look in the mirror; TheGORB.com's mirror that is. Despite being quietly soft-launched earlier this week, it probably won't be long until the TheGORB.com generates a bit of controversy based on the way it encourages Web users to be blunt when rating and assessing the professional and personal character of the people they know.
Ratings are submitted anonymously (see policy, right) and your permission isn't needed in order for someone else to rate you. Not only does TheGORB make it easy to score others both professionally and personally using sliding scales, users are given the opportunity to register their thoughts (in text) about the people they're scoring as well. Whereas other social networking services like LinkedIn.com restrict such commentary to a recommendation context (and the recommendations show up on the target's profile), there are no such boundaries at the TheGORB.com.
TheGORB reminds me of a social exercise a teacher once put a class of mine through where the students were encouraged to anonymously record their thoughts about others in the class. When all the submissions were in, each student was handed a pile of folded up notes that had their name on them. On the one hand, it can be a terrifying experience. On the other, if you're committed to self-improvement, is there a better way to get honest feedback about your business and personal skills?
TheGORB indexes its profiles based on e-mail address. Not only is someone's email address the only thing you need to know in order to rate someone, TheGORB makes it easy to get started on rating everyone you know by importing the e-mail addresses you keep any one of several e-mail or contact management systems (see below):
Once you've picked someone's e-mail address to rate, the rest is pretty straightforward. You drag a 0-10 slider to rate them personally (see below) and another to rate them professionally and then you can add any comments (the text box allows for up to 600 words).
You don't have to rate someone to see their rating. You can simply search on their email address as well and, as can be seen from the images below, you'll get their overall rating, you'll see where they stand in the worldwide ratings (sort of like ranking the authority of blogs on Technorati), and you also get to see any comments that users entered into their ratings.
Of course, the first question that popped into my mind is whether or not TheGORB.com could be held libel for slander in the event that someone or a group of people purposefully and unjustifiably assassinate the character of someone else. Via email, the company's founder Leonard Boord replied:
All the comments made are free to give and free to take. We do not moderate these comments. We act as a platform for people to express their free speech rights….Please read Michael Froomkin's work, he has reviewed our site and feels we are covered by many constitutional protections……Like your real world reputation, you do not opt in or opt out of your reputation. In TheGorb anybody creates your page and you are there. You can opt in (free, just register) and ask for your friends to give a good word for you and you can answer any comment made with your own voice.
Writing of the inspiration behind the TheGORB, Boord wrote:
We want this new reputation to be more truthful than the Web 1.0 version, In the Web 1.0 world the reputation came from the individual self promotion, ie Linkedin. We believe than few of us are as perfect as we "need" to be in our CV's ( or Linkedin lives). This positively skewed system where I describe myself and I give you 3 references is full of positive noise. We hope to build a system that allows for a more truthful and relaxed view of a person to emerge, one that is more human. We fail, we learn we succeed, fail again and learn and so on… In the CV world we always succeed, we can never fail, some experts suggest that 30% of the information on CV's is embellished. In the Web 2.0 version it will be built by the consensus view around an individual. Members of the community, posts their views on a person and the rest of the community approve or reject those comments. Like smart consumers of information, we will be able to discern which is negative or positive noise about a person.
So, are you ready to look in the mirror? Or do you just want to contribute to someone else's reflection?
