For a couple of years, I’ve had this recurring thought: “What if you could apply the PageRank concept of link popularity to reputation?” In other words, let’s say person A, a marketing guy, vouches for person J as being an awesome Java engineer. That endorsement, while it may well be true, would not mean nearly as much as if person B, an engineer himself who has 10 other engineers vouching for his Java engineering skills, vouches for person J’s Java skills. Well, imagine a giant graph with edges that represent such vouches. By analyzing the graph, one could find the best (essentially the node on the graph with the most incoming Java engineer vouches…again not just quantity of vouches but quality of vouches…sort of a weighted sum) Java engineer.

Well, as a sort of experiment, Paul and Nick were kind enough to help me whip up the Vouch For Me app on Facebook. Add it and start vouching for your friends and get vouches back.