Real-time economy feeds and ambient economics

Social economic networks are just one part of the broader context of the transformational economics that may eventually lead to a post-scarcity economy for material goods. In addition monetizing alternative currencies and unlocking previously inaccessible value, social economic networks are also generating a critical meta asset: billions of data points which can be aggregated into real-time economy feeds.

At present, the pulse of the real-time economy can be read first through crowd-sourced websites such as Blippy, where users automatically post personal economic transactions as they occur, and consumer prediction markets sites like the Hollywood Stock Exchange and the simExchange, where users opine on box office receipts of new movie releases and the sales levels of new video games.

Aggregated longitudinal comparisons can be made, for example getting an early look as to whether this is a slower quarter for a particular company, or whether consumer spending in general is lower in this period compared to another.

Just as social media ‘likes’ and status update commentary can be used to infer consumer values and preferences with a sentiment engine for anticipatory demand, this data too can be aggregated. While many dismiss ‘I ate a hotdog’ as meaningless social media drivel, when aggregated at the macro level, it could be more broadly meaningful as a leading indicator of pork consumption.

Connecting social economic networks with real-time location through mobile networks and smartphone applications could be another significant step in shifting economics as buyers and sellers connect seamlessly in an ongoing process of ambient supply and demand interaction and automatic markets.

Web 2.0 Meta Apps and Self-Aware Objects

With the proliferation of Web 2.0 companies, website based applications for category aggregation are needed.

The idea would be one site each for MetaCalendar, MetaPhoto, MetaBookmarking, MetaShopping (some of these exist but a more robust UPC code data aggregation and information packaging tool), MetaSocialNetworking (aggregating multiple in-site irresolvable profiles in addition to aggregating across all social networking sites), etc.

Advances and acceptance of federated identity are in process, however, user-administered affinity profiles could sidestep and even pave the way for federated identity and single logins.

Being useful is a parameter that should be pushed to the web object level, not imposed on the human user. Objects can become semi self-aware, at minimum finding and knowing of all other web instances of themselves (initially via UPCs) and the parameters there from such as price and availability, and later higher level parameters such as affinity compatibility.

All web content objects (products, services, blog posts, news items, personal profiles, etc.) could become self-aware in the sense of interfacing with affinity profiles and gathering and proffering basic and extended information and recommendations to human users.