THE AUGMENTED SOCIAL NETWORK: BUILDING IDENTITY AND TRUST INTO THE NEXT-GENERATION INTERNET is a very interesting white paper on the requirements for standards and protocols to support network-based organizations and the linkages among them. It is being presented at the PlaNetwork Conference which begins this weekend in San Francisco. Cynthia Typaldos has posted information about this conference in several lists. I downloaded the paper a while ago and found it good reading. It supports my own inquiry on the infrastructure needs for emergent networks. Persistence of knowledge content has been an ongoing part of my inquiry into tools for networks. The ASN (Augmented Social Network) calls for standards to support:

• persistent social identity,
  
• interoperability of content among collaboration systems and tools
  
• brokering
  
• public interest-matching software

All in a secure context.

The paper is available in abstract or as the complete whitepaper (PDF format).