[This was one of our initial assignments for our ITP thesis projects. Come up with a pie-in-the-sky review of your thesis idea.]

[FAKE] The Economist: A (Fake) Review of Galapag.us

Reputation and identity

The internet was a house of nil repute, until Galapag.us

An NYC startup is providing an ecosystem for people to build reputation metrics using any of their data

Forays into the online world have been fraught with peril, uncertainty, hucksters, intrigue, and irresistible indulgence of curiosities. Despite a need for truth-telling and fact-checking, social networking sites have been unable to establish reputation as a measure of quantifiable value to provide the unicorn of positive user experience.

However, a New York City-based startup would like to change that. Galapag.us, so named after the chain of islands made famous as Charles Darwin’s Eureka! moment for his theory of evolution, as well as for its American heritage and social emphasis (.us), has built up a loyal tribe of Galapag.users who promote its cause.

The tribe promotes openness of data and identity as a way to create measures for reputation, under the idea that being radically public will create more value for individuals and for society than governments, businesses, and nefarious individuals can take away through violations of privacy.

Surely other companies have attempted to reëvaluate reputation metrics, but as Ben Turner, the “discoverer” of Galapag.us says, “Companies either focus on low-hanging fruit from Foursquare and Facebook APIs, or they can only measure data in small spheres of peoples’ identities such as diet, exercise, or desktop PC productivity.” The strength of Galapag.us, Turner says, is in its ecosystem of data, variables, and formulae cutting across the spectrum of peoples’ identities, such as their professional progress, their hobbies, what they spend the fixed-limit twenty-four hours of the day doing, etc.

The other strength is indubitably its passionate tribe, made up of early adopters, quantified selfers, data science geeks, academic researchers (who have access to large-scale anonymized organization- or “tribe-” level data), and even recovering patients whose lives have been made quantified in order to survive their maladies.

For now, Galapag.us is closed only to members who vow to be open with their data, even though granular privacy controls with an “opt-in” only mentality are available. But Turner envisions a future where Galapag.us will provide reputations and identities to everyone — and every thing — on the planet, as a way to combat trafficking, bullying, undervaluation of good behavior, and other social problems.

The company can walk the walk, with an organic, thriving user base, as well as with its discoverer being a Texan and a former Army sergeant with an intelligence background, technical capability, and New York City Silicon Alley DNA. In an age where Internet users feel as though everything is being taken away from them, it is a breath of fresh air that Galapag.us is trying to return more value to people — and to society — than they need to provide on their own.