Thew topic of alternative credentials has come up from time to time, and while the focus is often ob things like badges, in social media a set of what are called here 'trust indicators' offers insight into some other measures. This article describes five such indicators: trust logos (eg., of clients, partners, etc); industry accreditations; industry awards; testimonials; and impressive data (eg., subscriber numbers). These are all pretty superficial, but importantly, they are all accepted as signs of trustworthiness to more or less a degree. That said, they're often transactional - the people bestowing the trust indicator want to be known as someone who bestows trust; the expectation, for example, if you get an award is that you'll post the award (and link) on your home page. For this reason I don't trust any of these indicators.
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