That’s a much broader question.

Those like myself will have seen, as I have, an acceleration and a progression of communication, which we can only really compare to telephone and the earliest modems, whereas kids today will then compare what comes later to what they use now.

In time, our connectedness will be to such a degree that “the conversation” will never really end.

You also mentioned something about trust in the various sites that have started making names for themselves including Facebook, Digg, Google and Twitter. I agree that one must not base his thoughts solely one source, and rather must practice the art of verifying first, after gathering some facts and information. Doing so would pave the way for the emergence of authority in blogging.

There was one thing though in this article that I absolutely felt compelled to comment on upon reading it. You ask the question ‘Do we trust Twitter more than Google?’

Quite frankly, I trust the U.S. Congress more than Google, and that’s saying a lot.

As for TrustRank, I haven’t much to say about it at this point. Ultimately, like most web entrepreneurs, I am going to tend to favor search ranking algorithms that favor my sites over the competition, so ultimately I’d have to see how such a formula would affect my traffic relative to where it’s at today before coming out either in support of or against any new means of determining which sites are worthy of receiving traffic from search.

Thanks for messaging me via Facebook and informing me of this post (which I actually first read several weeks ago and am just now getting back to). I need to make a point of visiting your site more often. In this economy, I’ve been so busy my SEO aptitude has diminished somewhat, and your analysis and commentary have always helped me stay up-to-date and on the cutting edge.

Keep up the great work!

So thanks for the fine comment and suggestion!

Indeed so!

On their own, no one social media website is a reliable source. Each have their flaws, their faults, weaknesses et cetera. However, cumulatively, they offer a greater value. And if they were to submit to being a part of a bigger, broader and more inclusive strategy, one that helps mitigate their weaknesses, we could end up with a very rich set of metrics.

Just look at the demographic data Facebook have at their disposal. We already know that advertising on the web has tanked. The next step is figuring out how to be more specific, visible and transparent with our offerings via the social web.

These newly enlightened businesses will be in need of better data, and anything that formalizes these data silos is only going to make the time taken to contribute towards a greater good by the social media websites more rewarding for them over the long term…

Whilst I agree that social media networking platforms are generating a new form of authority, their metrics are a lot harder to related to what I would generally see as genuine authority.

Google metrics, whilst defined by themselves are based upon a number of factors that make “common sense”. Quality of content, good practice, inbound link quality and several others, some of which we’ll never know about and may never wish to.

Social networking platforms on the other hand are a lot less reliable as sources of authority in my humble opinion.

Take Twitter for example, you only have to look at the number of followers that some can achieve in a relatively short space of time now with next to no posts (and certainly no posts of value) to pour scorn on the follower statistics.

RT tweets could be used as a more reliable source of authority, but I again they have their own form of political unreliability with people RT’ing popular tweeters for the sake of favours.

The social collective, particularly since social media (or specifically Twitter) hit the big time, might not always be the most objective grader.

In some respects the likes of delicious are a far more reliable source of social authority as they don’t have the underlying interest of achieving notoriety through follower numbers.

Personally I think you should continue to ensure that you deliver good content, in good accessible formats, on all digital fronts and let people make their own decisions.

You’ll need to add your own energies into social media work, as this isn’t something that will happen by itself, such is their nature. But this, like any other content you write on the internet should have the desired affect of authority building.

What the likes of Twitter could do is add some authority grade that works along the lines of Google, but they’ll have their work cut out for them to avoid people spoofing authority.

But I guess that’s what you’re driving at!