Recently I responded to an iKarma press release which outlines some of the new features found at the Identity Aggregator.

Paul Williams, CEO of iKarma, responded with a lengthy comment, going into considerable detail about each new feature and how each of the aggregators, mainly Opinity, iKarma and to some extent Trufina, are shifting market focus.

First, a disclaimer: I’ve been an advisor Trufina in the past and hope to work with the companies I mention in this post. My primary interest lies in aggregated clickstream/identity/attention providers are positioning their product offerings to provide useful services which bring marketers closer to consumers in new and innovative ways.

I need to mention ROOT markets because that is a major piece of the puzzle that’s not often mentioned in the same breath with identity aggregators. The Attention Trust deserves a shout out as well, although a lot needs to happen before they get the traction needed to earn their place in the Identity Stack.

Aggregating identity data is only the first step. These companies have been refining their business models for quite some time. This is the nature of the game during this round of positioning. The VC know it, the companies themselves know it and the the partners they are trying to attract can sense the tectonic movement underneath the entire sector as they figure out how everyone fits together.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Solving difficult problems takes time, ongoing business model refinement, evolving partnerships and realizing that ceeding market sectors to competition can often be the best move in order to advance.

To get back to Paul’s comments. He says that Monster, LinkedIn, Opinity and Rapleaf have been “moving as much in our direction as we have been moving in theirs” and goes on to make the case.

I have been tracking theses companies closely for the past year and agree with Paul, but only partially. From my perspective, the core differences between nodes and hubs, i.e data providers and aggregators, continues to lessen.
I’m constantly looking for ways to refine the differentiation between all of these services and the myriad of competition that’s on the way. There is clearly an identity problem in the identity management space. For example, IKarma is supposed to be a useful and friendly sales tool for business. That clearly puts it in the business reputation box, which is complimentary to identity management and actually more similar to Rapleaf than Opinity.
Trufina, once considered a provider of background checks, continues to roll out features similar to Opinity and iKarma. Existing relationships between the companies may come under considerable strain as they risk redundancy of services.
I disagree with Paul about Opinity looking more like Myspace. Paul, perhaps you could clarify this point. If anything, everyone is starting to resemble AIM pages/Tribe.net/insert name of your favorite personalized modularize home page portal here.
On a scatter chart, the grouping appears tightly packed. If anything, the entire grouping is shifting en masse around the board. The shift directly correlates to two things at the moment, potential revenue and funding sources.

Of course Opinity partnered with Rapleaf, that makes total sense. If a node, or data provider like Rapleaf goes away, a hub, or aggregator like Opinity will simply replace them with another node that offers similar functionality and data. That’s the flip side of Web 2.0 (how I hate that phrase), or owning your own data. Rapleaf is actually playing both sides, it’s a node with aggregator spots. This is a good position for them.

I think it’s important for each of the companies mentioned to put themselves in the shoes of the Biz Dev teams at a job boards or business networking sites or major marketing or advertising firms. How do I gauge which solution makes the most sense for my company’s particular circumstances? In my life as a management consultant and advisor, running these types of scenarios is common practice and super-helpful.

Most people don’t want a service that does everything, they want something that fixes a problem they have. Adding reputation reviews is firmly in the “would be nice” column for most companies. To a select few, it’s their most-needed feature. Figuring out the difference between the “would be nice” companies and the “must have’s” is clearly an important exercise for all involved.

My Myspace and LinkedIn pages are much more relevant to a potential employer than my Flickr photostream. A potential first date wants to see my photos, personal profile and perhaps reputation, not my LinkedIn profile. That’s why contextual profiles are so important.
It is going to be very interesting to see how PeopleAggregator fares. Broadband Mechanics has been working with AIM Pages and they too claim to want to do everything for everyone any way they can with any API. This broad focus makes for good buzz, success lies in them being able to deliver real value to the consumer or advertiser where money changes hands. I’m all for people owning their own data, but most people just don’t know or care enough to make the effort to use these services in their current forms.