On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog

Anyone can be anything, they can even be many things on the Internet!

The reason I'm writing about this is because I recently connected with someone on twitter that is working on his own solution for an online identity verification service. He calls it Certoid ("Certified Online Identity").

When I read about it, the first thing that came to mind was twitter verified accounts. The little blue symbol next to your name that says this person is real. A month ago, I read a post that suggested that twitter should charge for verified accounts. I couldn't agree more!!!

We follow people because we value what they have to say - we trust their opinion, so knowing if they're real or who they say they are, really matters. If someone could do this right and create a system that allows people to verify their ids, while keeping their information "private", and allow other online services to tap into the info, it would be huge!!! All kinds of applications, from accessing content (eg. can you view this, how old are you), to buying products (eg. medicine or alcohol) or just sharing your opinion (on sites like Amazon or TripAdvisor).

Anyway, for now we'll just be dogs :)