It’s a sad fact of life that many of the most insightful and helpful people on the web (and in real life, for that matter) aren’t financially rewarded for their efforts — they may well be satisfied with the good they’ve done, but that doesn’t help to pay the rent. The Whuffie Bank, a new non-profit organization that’s launching today at TechCrunch50, wants to fix this by launching a new currency that rewards people for their positive contributions on the web.
The startup is hoping to promote change in the web by rewarding users with a positive impact on the web with this karma-like digital currency. The service will monitor your activity across various websites, including things like comments, posts, and more. When you complete positive actions, you gain Whuffies, and you lose them when you do something that the organization deems to be detrimental. The company hopes that as we use the web more and more in our day-to-day life this positivity will extend beyond the web.
To get started you enter your username on Twitter (Facebook support will be coming). The site displays how many Whuffies you have, along with a graph of your progress over time. The site ranks its users by Whuffies, in the hopes of helping surface the top users in different fields.
The algorithm takes into account ‘public endorsements’, or the number of times a user’s tweets are retweeted, or a Facebook post is Liked. It also takes into account who is making the endorsement, and the content in the messages that are being posted. You can make offers to other users using Whuffies as payment (for example, I could ask someone to help me draw a logo, offering 100 Whuffies as payment).
The company says it was inspired by the Creative Common nonprofit model. The name comes from Cory Doctorow’s book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
Q&A with panelists Dick Costolo, Reid Hoffman, Sean Parker, Mike Schroepfer, Chamillionaire, and Robert Scoble:
RH: The problem with this kind of currency is you need banking system… There are people on the web whose political views mean nothing to me. This will be very difficult, but as a concept I think it’s cool.
DC: I was thinking about Reid’s comment and the interesting thing about virtual currencies is that even when they’re not scarce, you can make people think they’re scarce. In Zynga, chips cost a certain amount of money. It’s a challenge to incite scarcity, but you can do it. We’ve seen things like this before.
Chamillionaire: I want to hear in one line, what do I get? Seems like a lot of work..
A: We try to have ways to detect people who are trying to exploit the system. This project isn’t sustained on accumulation of work or capital. In order to be wealthy, you have to be respected by other people that are important.
Calacanis: Mike, doesn’t Facebook have a social currency going on that’s unspoken?
MS: I think the devil is in the details. It depends on context. I could say they have lots of likes and comments. It means they post interesting things, but what does that mean.
A: Purpose of making this non-profit. Guaranteed that it would make this independent of any social platform out there, ensures transparency.
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“It’s a sad fact of life that many of the most insightful and helpful people on the web (and in real life, for that matter) aren’t financially rewarded for their efforts.”
What’s so sad about that? Some do it out of good will. Money is not everything.
How convenient, on some other day and time, TC would have said…well…you only get what you deserve.
Please don’t play with words to promote products ..its dangerous and will backfire.
People who want to be rewarded for helping others out are either in customer service, or politicians. The others do it out of good will, not a desire for money.
True, money aint everything.
But I think they should get something out of it.
Helper I fully agree; There is a loss of global view on what’s is running in that article. Money is not everything!!!!!! But the Whuffiebank is a great start. The Flowplace is making a deeper work in that direction. http://www.flowplace.com
This is absolutely crazy!
Yeah, Whuffie Bank is like the Onion article of start-ups.
Everyone is crazy.
Tara hunt’s book transformed into a nonprofit organization
I have nothing to do with this company. :/
You mean Cory Doctorow’s book…
Can I get my withdrawals in Flooz?
So what’s the point of collecting whuffies? Will they be used like real currency to buy stupid gizmos and whatnot, or just a “pat on the back” points system? Seems a like an excuse to track more people’s browsing habits more than anything.
it’s the thought that counts, a ‘Whuffie’ sound like a plushie wolf – I want one!
You cant do much with it.
Yet.
When it is more widely adopted, you can buy stuff from people as much as you like.
“Hey, im giving you 100 whuffies if you help me with *something*.”
“Hey, ill give you 350 whuffies for that used lamp youre selling on ebay.”
Don’t seem to see its value
Am I misremembering or is this from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom?
Yes Hawks. How can this post even be written without reference to Doctorow’s brilliant book. You can read it for free: http://craphoun...index.php?cat=2
According to the Whuffie website, it actually is.
@Hawks5999: You’re not mis-remembering, which is why it’s mentioned in the article itself.
I think they’re making the classic mistake of not being able to separate reputation currencies from medium of exchange currencies.
For a reputation currency to be useful and have integrity it should not be able to be exchanged, bought or sold. It should only be able to be earned for doing the things that the reputation is granted for.
For example, if you can just buy a “Certified Organic” reputation for the food you produce no matter how many chemicals are in it, then you have fundamentally undermined the integrity of the rating.
We can separate the distinct functions of currencies which are usually collapsed together in money (like medium of exchange, store of value, unit of measure and token of status/reputation). This allows us to build new kinds of incentives and rewards.
Whuffies “should” be one of these new kinds of currencies, but I believe the Whuffie Bank will fail if it doesn’t build integrity into its currency from the outset.
What?
I’m just saying… although the vision of Whuffie Cory Doctorow depicts in his book is fun and entertaining, I think these Whuffie Bank folks be sure that their intentions are truly being translated into their currency.
At the moment, from what I understand of their plan, they have neither a good reputation currency nor a decent medium of exchange currency.
One of the reasons is because they’re collapsing the tool allowing people to trade in something that is also used to represent reputation.
But another reason is something that people have commented on in this thread. It’s the Pareto Effect. The current design amplifies people who are already amplified. Whether because a fad or celebrity or controversy, whatever is getting re-tweeted is granted a higher reputation in Whuffie.
So far, they’ve designed a currency to enable noise-makers to trade in points they get from making noise. I’m not sure that’s the vision of a Whuffie enabled economy that they actually want, but that’s what they’ve built.
-art
I’m not sure I want to collect anything that’s called a whuffie.
Again, a weird name with a possible irrelevant service, seems more like just a waste of time and money; and taking up a precious space at TC50…
Like twitter?
Talk about selling your soul to the devil. This sounds really stupi.d So they track everything I do. Which i know for a fact will then turn into profit for them because they will sell my information and I will get marketed to death.
No thanks. Not worth it. Whuffie sounds like something you loose your rights to.
Non-Profit.
Is their “Top 10 Reputation” list there for just informational purposes right now? Because otherwise, having Perez Hilton at number 8 pretty much undermines the entire concept.
People get RTed and get whuffies for it.
If people RT Perez Hilton alot, she gets on the top 10 list.
No problem here.
kok bosok infone ?
These criteria are quite odd… Most of the retweeted and facebook-liked stuff is just useless buzz and crap.
Whuffie will end up in rewarding LOLcats and other stupid trash, instead of actually useful information.
Well, its about reputation.
If people like you for posting LOLcats, then thats the same as posting news and people liking it.
It rewards for doing something for other people.
If that consists in spreading LOLcats, then thats fine.
It seems like this would be nothing more than a way to reward web groupthink. Who is supposed to determine what is “good” and what is “bad?” Will a particular political point of view be rewarded, where another point of view is punished? Will boosterism for the Wuffie earn you points, while criticism will earn you demerits? For that matter, will they partner with sponsors to give credits to people who give positive reviews to their product, while removing credits from people who give negative reviews? How transparent with the mechanism and criteria be?
It seems like no matter how you structure it, what you end up with is nothing more than a system to bribe people into espousing a certain viewpoint.
Not really, not the whuffie bank decides what is good or bad, but the people.
The only thing they do is count the times you RT people or you get RTed.
The Whuffie Bank doesnt decide what is bad or good. At all.
This is cool for a research project but I’m afraid that’s where it ends – Dope Wars for real life sort of…
PS: The Washington Nationals called, they want their logo back.
“What’s the ratio of Stanley Nickels to Schrute Bucks?”
“The same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns.”
What good is having a lot of something if the amount you have has absolutely no bearing on anything but itself? Having more Whuffies will net you nothing, not even bragging rights. Anyone who brags about having Whuffies will deserve the derision that follows.
“Whuffie” sounds like a dirty word…
“She’s such a tramp! She’ll give anyone a Whuffie!”
Looks like someone read Accelerando far too many times while sitting on the shitter.
This has got to be the
stupidest.thing.ever.
Why?
I system used to reward people doing good stuff (or what others consider good stuff, therefore RTing you) is a neat idea.
Its not just twitter, when the api is done everyone could use it on their website to give this “karma” to their users.
And then, the users use this currency to “buy” something from others.
“Ill give you 10 whuffies if you help me doing *something*”
I see no problem.
Any system which talks about social capital while having a side bar with slebs earning tons of whuffie based on fame and twitter followers just doesn’t “get” the whole point of social capital, which is to reward people for actions taken in the social network.
But hey, every “Top 100 X” metric on Twitter uses exactly the same measure – volume of followers – so its not hard to see how they got there.
Yes, as it is now, famous people (Obama, actors, etc) will get retweeted just because they are awesome in Real Life, and not really doing something in the net.
But, I dont see how they can fix that, they are “rich” because people RT them alot. And thats how it works for normal people too.
We will have to live with that. Or just dont use the service.
Personally I dont care about it.
Great one more thing for me to be not successful at. Thanks again inertnets.
Had a chat with a good friend who hadn’t heard of whuffie, and she was absolutely horrified at the prospect of “a real-time determination of your personal value based on high-school popularity contests”.
I admit, I’m not terribly enticed by the thought of a system biased towards celebrities, politicians, televangelists, reality-TV contestants, media extremists, cause-of-the-moment figureheads, those capable of controlling or threatening the populations of entire countries, and anyone who can get their message out in front of the maximum number of people.
Then there’s the ability to see everyone else’s Whuffie score. While some people are extroverts who wouldn’t mind wearing their score on their sleeve, others are more private people who might not want their interactions with others to be colored by the opinions of third parties.
Think of authors or radio/internet personalities who are well known by name, reputation, or alias, but not so much for their appearance. At the moment they can, if they choose, be relatively anonymous in their day-to-day life. If their Whuffie score was following them around like a big neon sign, do you think they’d still be able to have normal conversations with random people?
I can all-too-easily imagine whuffie-stalkers, independent paparazzi keeping tabs on the points of anyone within range and following the around with a video camera in order to sell the video to celebrity channels and fan forums. Whuffie would allow everyone pick the most globally interesting people out of a crowd in seconds, even if they just wanted to get on with eating their sandwich or finishing their shopping.