The first question that comes to mind when I see the front page is, "Why would I use this instead of LinkedIn recommendations? Especially since I don't want to convince everyone I know to switch from LinkedIn, etc.".

It seems like your answer is that trust is weighted by how much you trust someone.

However, that isn't clear without some digging. Certainly, that point is more important than the "thumbs-up" people, yet the "thumbs-up" people are more visible (and annoying).

A couple other questions -

- I'd still need to be sold on getting people I know to sign up - maybe there's some way to piggyback off of existing networks?

- Just because I trust someone in one area doesn't mean I trust them in others. For instance, someone may be a fantastic lawyer, but just because they recommend a developer does not mean I think they're competent to rate developers.

- The tagline, "Your credibility, online" strikes me as a little much. For one thing, the idea of trusting my credibility to a single site gives me the heebie-jeebies. Fortunately, that's not the case, credibility cannot exist in a single database, and thinking about that drives home that the tagline may be overstating it a bit.

- I really dig that the registration form is minimal, but it makes me wonder how to distinguish multiple people with the same name.