New and exciting things are popping up everywhere at TechCrunch50 One of the coolest is The Whuffie Bank. According to the company,
“The Whuffie Bank is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new currency based on reputation that could be redeemed for real and virtual products and services. The higher your reputation, the wealthier you are.”
Pretty simple idea. Currently supported by Twitter, the The Whuffie Bank plans to offer access via Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg and any other reputation driven online tool. So how does it work? You’re encouraged to communicate via your social media many times a day. But make sure your tweets are relevant, because your peers can thumbs up you or send your Whuffie Bank account into the red. To build up your account, build a good online reputation. Here is how your Whuffie worth is calculated by a fancy algorithm that:
“1. Detects Public Endorsements – Each time a message you put on Twitter gets retweeted or a Facebook post gets liked by others, that’s considered a positive endorsement for you.
2. Measures Level of Influence – A person that’s constantly retweeting others will be spreading the impact of his influence among many people. On the other side, if a person retweets a message once in a while, that will have a bigger impact.
3. Considers Existing Reputation of Members – Being endorsed by a Whuffie-rich person will have a stronger impact than being endorsed by an average user.
4. Analyzes Content of Messages – A message with a link that gets retweeted usually it’s because of the content in a website rather than the person sharing it in the first place. So when someone gets retweeted for something they exclusively said, that will have a bigger impact on the algorithm.
What’s really cool is that they actually plan on printing (or minting) real Whuffie currency that you can use around the world. I want a Whuffie! I promise I will use it only for good. So how do these guys make money? Well, for now they are a self-proclaimed non-profit. How fresh! Maybe one day the greenback will be replaced by the Whuffie and we will all get along. But then will the Whuffie become the root of all evil just like other currencies? Let’s hope not. To start building your Whuffie empire, check out the The Whuffie Bank homepage.
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