Imagine a World

For Web2.0 businesses that have valuable content, but don't want to monetize through advertising or corporate sponsorship, sustaining themselves can be impossible. The VRM movement may have a solution coming - the proposed EmanciPay platform allows users to set micro-prices on content enabling them to vote with their wallets.

The CNET article How a kids video start-up stays afloat discusses Totlol.com – a crowd-sourced guide and viewing portal to kid-friendly videos on You-Tube.

Last Friday night, we nerds stayed home to claim our Facebook vanity URLs. Whatever that stunt was about, enough people responded to get me reflecting on a session from last week's Online Communities Unconference that discussed How to Manage Multiple Personalities & Relationships Online.

Dear Facebook

You're clearly on a roll right now, but your hunger for a sustainable revenue model is making it hard for me as both User and Developer. Look after me and others like me and we’ll make you rich.

This week I read a couple of articles that confirmed to me that online marketing needs an overhaul. First the announcement of new guidelines for behavioral advertising and then a note out of the VRM movement discussing how consumers can regain control

Just read the Wired posting Amazon Launches Text_Message Shopping and I was excited as this seems to improve upon 1-Click ordering. This in my opinion adds even more convenience to the shopping experience. I remember when Jeff Bezos announced Frictionless Retailing and this really set the scene for what they were trying to do - well, they continue to deliver.

I found the Yahoo! FareChase Alerts widget the other day. It looked promising, but upon reading the comments, I didn't want to bother downloading it

If you check out the ProjectVRM website, you'll see that VRM is all about "providing customers with tools for engaging with vendors in ways that work for both parties".

A new Facebook application seems to have gained a few column inches in the San Jose Mercury News - Facebook application pays users for helping sell goods to friends.

Esther Dyson's recent article, The Coming Ad Revolution in the WSJ pretty much summed up my feelings regarding online direct marketing.

She notes how in the online advertising model, "users will be barraged by ads to which they will pay less and less attention" and that in today's social networks "each user determines who will get into his own garden, whether friends or vendors".

Doc Searls' post on the VRM blog drew my attention to this: What could be the next dominant force on the Internet?. Trey Tomeny a Dallas based entrepreneur provides an extensively thought out discussion of a Private Identity Network

I recently signed up to Page Once - the personal Internet Assistant. Page once allows me to sign in to all of my accounts from one web page. It will remember my passwords and create a single dashboard for my accounts. I guess that helps.