15 August, 2005 - 10:01am

The recent posting in A Nation By the People and IP Addresses by Wayne Hall provides a good summary of the differences between a silo-centric Identity 1.0 web and our vision of a user-centric Identity 2.0 web. He correctly notes that when consumers gain control of their online identities that vendor identity policies will be forced to adapt, allowing for greater privacy.

He states, "Identity 2.0 reverses the current online standard in which the business or service provider has the economic power to compel the buyer to hand over chunks of his or her personal identity to process even the most mundane transaction. It’s a system that works primarily to the advantage of the seller."

This brings to mind the idea of "markets as conversations" and that with an increasingly networked world, the need for companies to rethink how they interact with their customers. This perspective is from an excellent book co-authored by Doc Searls, The Cluetrain Manifesto, which though written several years ago, is just as relevant today.