Do You Trust Me?

Interesting post on my friend Charlene Li's blog about trust.  Some findings are not surprising to me. Obviously people trust a friend's opinion on something the most. And sadly, it's not surprising that print or TV has a higher trust factor than online. Part of it is just cultural habit. But honestly, TV and print publications have more entrenched checks and balances and a real fear of liability lawsuits if anything is mis-reported. At BusinessWeek, I had to have very high ranking principals on both sides of a deal confirm, say, acquisition talks before I could report it. Frequently for a blog, a rumor from a well-sourced person in the industry is enough. It'll be interesting to see how that changes over time, as traditional media changes its rules to compete for scoops and blogs become more powerful and get deeper pockets. (You know it's a matter of time before Nick Denton gets hit with a liable slander suit. per comments- I don't even know what it is OR how to spell it, so Denton shouldn't come to me for legal advice clearly...)

What surprised me was that chat rooms would rank higher in trust than a blogger! Think about it. Chat rooms are typically anonymous and incredibly snarky. You at least know who a blogger is; if not by name, you have a sense of their identity by how they write about other topics. In my experience being personally attacked by both bloggers (Hello, Rafat!) and anonymous commenters (Hello, Yahoo!FinanceUser163786r879756351999!), neither certainly affects my livelihood, access to sources or day-to-day job much, but I get asked about the real blogger's attack on me a lot more than some anonymous commenter who thinks I'm dumb and I have fat arms.

The blogger stops to make people -- at least those who don't know me-- think. But the commenter? People seem to immediately write them off. I've actually been very heartened by this. I don't have a lot of respect for anyone attacking me on a very personal level, who doesn't know me and doesn't have the guts to say it to my face or at least in email. But if you can't even put your name on it? Please. There's so much handwringing over how mean the Internet is getting, it's reassured me that most people seem to ignore such attacks just as much as I do. (Again, I'm talking personal attacks, not taking issue with the content of a story or my analysis. All of that is fine no matter who you are or what venue you are using.)

I wonder if there's a methodology problem with this study? I'd be curious to know how it would change if they specified chat rooms were dominated by people with anonymous user names. I also bet it changes over time, as bloggers become more mainstream.

[Giving Rafat a hard time as we have *quite* a past. But I should give PaidContent props for taking the high road during the SWSX circus.]