The famous caption from The New Yorker cartoon reads, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” This is most vexing for PR and marketing types who find themselves trying to reach out and understand which bloggers and social media types might be influencers, which ones have some kind of authority, and which ones might be cobblers and tinkerers. It’s a complex question, and I don’t pretend that I can fully answer the title of this blog post. Instead, I wanted to do two things with this post: give PR and marketing types a place to start, and also give others a chance to weigh in on their take on authority and how it’s measured on the web.

If you find your comments going long, feel free to blog it, and link to the post in the comments section. Why not spread the idea out there and get your community chewing on it as well?

How the Web Defines Authority

It would be easy to bog ourselves down in definitions of the word “authority” itself. In this case, let’s agree that the working definition as it pertains to this topic is: a blog or website or even an individual person and their credibility, knowledge, and reputation on the Web. Is this close enough? How would you change this? If we agree, or are close enough, let’s go on.

Google measures the authority of websites by way of PageRank. Understanding a site’s PageRank only tells you what Google thinks of a site. My site is ranked a 6, which is reasonable, but not extraordinary. Cross Google and they dump your rank fairly low. (SEO types, chime in here)

Technorati ranks your site by way of inbound links from unique websites over the last six months. Meaning, now that Seth Godin has linked to me here once, Technorati doesn’t care about Seth for another six months (as he relates to my site). Thus, your Technorati ranking is essentially a measure of whether you’ve written anything someone else has decided to link to in the last several months, and the number of somebodies is what determines your “authority.”

Alexa ranks your site via how many people visit it based on their statistics. I’ve heard conflicting information over the years as to how this actually is done. Instead of Alexa, I tend to use Compete, which I feel provides better, more actionable information. Just the same, knowing that more-than-a-few people visit a site gives one a sense of whether someone values it or not.

Yahoo provides a way to see how many inbound links a website has received via their Site Explorer. This again tells you whether someone’s efforts are resonating well around the web at large.

Hubspot puts lots of these together in one place with their Website Grader tool. (They also make Twitter Grader, and one for PR). It’s very useful in getting a quick sniff of a lot of the above results. (Maybe they’ll add compete.com?)

Other Ways to Determine Authority

As the web splinters out and content atomizes even more, there are new ways to determine someone’s reputation, potential level of influence, and more. But here’s where it gets a little wishy washy, and where I’m sure there’s more and more opportunity to dispute any of these ideas.

Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn give one a relatively quick snapshot of someone’s online interactivity. You can do a quick scan of a Twitter user’s last few pages of tweets and see what they talk about. You can use Twitter Search and see how many people respond to that user. If nothing else, you could see how many people are connected to this individual.

I flinch a bit when I say this. It’s not a numbers game. And yet, do numbers tell us anything about a person? Maybe. What’s your thought on that one?

Googling someone to see just how much of a digital footprint she leaves is also one way to see if someone has a presence on the web. I did this once with a “social media expert” that I met at an event, and unless they use an interesting alias, I couldn’t find barely a trace of this person either directly on several social networks, nor via Google itself.

Your Thoughts

What does this all tell you? Where do you go with this? How does an organization start to learn who’s who on the web, who might have authority and influence, and get some sense of the scope of what this person is doing?

Is someone already doing something useful and powerful in this space?

And if you found the ultimate source for determining the above, would it still help you trust someone you knew solely from the web?

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Photo credit, Juria Yoshikawa

In writing Trust Agents, my book with Julien Smith, we’ve started to realize six major traits that define a trust agent. Part of what we’ve noticed through researching the concept is that trust agents quite often make their own game. What do we mean? Consider traditional mainstream businesses. They are the gatekeepers of what we consider the standard, the typical, the recognized. It’s really easy to look at this when you consider various media properties and their online upstart counterparts. To that end, I’m going to start a list, and I was hoping you’d be inspired to add your thoughts and ideas to it. Maybe I’ll even go back and edit your ideas from the comments into the main post.

Gatekeepers vs. Gatejumpers

Gatekeeper: Consumer Reports
Gatejumper: The Consumerist
source: Paul Gillin

Gatekeeper: People Magazine
Gatejumper: Perez Hilton
source: Meg Fowler

Gatekeeper: New York Times Politics
Gatejumper: Huffington Post

Gatekeeper: Popular Mechanics
Gatejumper: MAKE Magazine

Gatekeeper: Telco Networks
Gatejumper: Apple iPhone (for now: Google Android soon)

Gatekeeper: The Yellow Pages
Gatejumper: Craigslist

Gatekeeper: NBC, ABC, CBS
Gatejumper: YouTube or Blip.TV

GateKeeper: Encyclopedia Britannica
GateJumper: Wikipedia
Source, GeekMommy

GateKeeper: Mapquest
GateJumper: Google Earth/Google Maps
Source, G. Wayne Clayton

Gatekeeper – The Music Industry (Geffen, Atlantic, Sony)
Gatejumper – Digital Technology (Napster, Bittorrent, MySPace)
Source, Sean Bohan

Gatekeeper – NBC Television [editor’s note: I’d say Saturday Night Live vs…]
Gatejumper – Ask A Ninja, Tiki Bar, TV, French Maid TV
Source, Sean Bohan

Gatekeeper: Mc Graw Hill
Gatejumper: Createspace (on-demand publishing)
Source, Troy Malone

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Who else do YOU want to add?

Photo credit, mylerdude

Vicki Flaugher has done some brilliant things with her website design. In fact, as I started to type this bit up to talk about how great her subscription buttons are (just LOOK at that email subscription sticky note), I went back to the top of her web page and caught all the other little design tidbits. Look at the top left where there’s built in language translation buttons. Look at the top right, where the first thing I see is a sign up for even more material (a conversion engine). Check out the subtle little PayPal Tip Jar in the first little bit of scroll on the far right column.

Vicki’s About page has a picture of her, and a very clear sense of what she wants to do next with you. She even goes so far as to post a bit of her singing ability, for an added extra something.

I can’t compliment her work enough. Smart Woman Guides is a great site looking at making it easier for Vicki’s audience and community.

And how did I find her? I read her comment on one of my posts, saw her tweet, and then caught a trackback to a blog she posted that mentioned my next level blogging advice.

What do you think? Can you see why I like what she’s done? Any advice you’d give Vicki?

Let’s not fool anyone. You can do your job without using Twitter. You can get through any number of days without blogging. You don’t need to consume podcasts to perform your daily duties. Everything on your desk and in your calendar and piled high on your task list doesn’t require the use of Facebook, Friendfeed, Myspace, to get the work done. You don’t need RSS, nor do you need to know the name of even one popular blog.

MILLIONS of people all over the world get by just fine without these tools. Every day. Pick the small town where you live, or even a decent sized city space, and ask a random assortment of people whether they do any of the above. (Starbucks’ denizens don’t count, because we all know most Internet startups live in Starbucks and Panera).

Unless you’ve engineered your role to be wholly dependent on these technologies, you could go about your business without them and live a full and productive life until death.

So why, then, and I’m asking YOU this question, do millions of us thrive in this environment? Why are we threading the social web? Why are we spending hours a day reaching out, building connections, cultivating relationships, producing and consuming media that only a sliver of the world is even noticing?

What makes this our passion?

I know my answers. What’s your take? Feel free to comment below, or if you want to blog a response, please do so and link back to this post so we can all track the conversation.

Photo credit, fictures