Excerpt:

"eBay has proved how the trust we typically form face-to-face can be built and assigned online by creating the grandfather of reputation systems, the Feedback Forum. After any transaction, buyers and sellers can rate each other using a simple points system (1,0,-1). Once users reach a certain number of points, they receive a star attached to their screen name, indicating their trustworthiness. The "silver shooting star" indicates the highest rating.

With around 98 to 99 percent of trades receiving positive rating the eBay approach seems to work and has been copied and adapted to a lot of other projects. One of the most common complaints with eBay is the use of nicknames instead of real names, and this is where the use of social network profiles can be a handy extra in the reputation system"

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Excerpt:

"Collaborative Fund has been operational for less than a year, but is investing in some of the hottest startups that use a collaborative consumption business model, including most recently, RentCycle. Companies come to Collaborative Fund, Botsman notes, because they want to be part of a community and portfolio that believes in the same business approach.

 A depth of market knowledge among the investors and advisers at Collaborative Fund--their advisers include founding team members of Kiva, Meetup, OpenTable, and YouTube--makes it distinct from traditional VC firms, she says. Entrepreneurs know they can rely on Collaborative Fund for help in understanding competition and market opportunities, but also feel that backing from this fund is a seal of approval in their industry."

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