Archive for the 'Ideas' Category

Prosper, Zopa, P2P Lending - Heard of it?

Published
by
John Erik
on October 27, 2006
in Ideas, Links and Social Networks
. Comments

I actually wrote this up back in February ‘06 and never posted it, but after reading Stuart and then Léon’s recent blogs, I fugured at add my own on the topic.

10 February 2006–
Today, while I was studying for a marketing test, I became distracted by an idea I had a while back for a “virtual lanlord” service. So I got up, because a good biz idea is a great reason to stop studying, and did some Google’n. Long story short, I didn’t find what I was looking for - maybe a good thing for my virtual landlord company - but I did find two services that I think are awesome: Prosper, in the US, and Zopa, in Great Britain, are the only two online marketplaces facilitating person-to-person lending (PLEASE correct me if I am wrong). They remove the bank from the lending/borrowing sequence and take advantage of their countries’ Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) to electronically transfer money for free. On the lender’s side, I think of it as a “virtual landlord” for leased moneys. It compiles a repayment schedule, tells/reminds borrowers (renters) when to pay, allows them to pay online, and enforces the law (forecloses) when they don’t pay; therefore taking the stress off the shoulders of the lender. The above still sounds kinda confusing, check out this Via Prosper’s “how it works” page:

“People who need money request it, and other people bid for the privilege of lending it to them. Prosper makes sure everything is safe, fair and easy. Here’s how it works:

Visual summary of the Prosper process: Borrower requests a loan, lenders bid on the listing, and the borrower's loan is created.
(click image to enlarge)

…and via zopa:

“The markets work just like, well, markets. Lenders put their wares on display; in this case, money they are prepared to lend to other people for a certain length of time. And, just like any market, different vendors may have different prices (otherwise known as interest rates). Some may pick lower rates but only want to lend to borrowers who have a very high likelihood of paying it all back. Others may pick higher rates but be prepared to be more flexible, thereby taking a punt on borrowers who might be slightly more likely to default. Borrowers can then come and have a sniff about, see what the rates are and if they’re good value agree to borrow. Because Zopa cuts out the middleman, everyone gets a great deal. … All lenders and borrowers enter into a legally binding contract with their respective borrowers and lenders. Zopa manages the collection of monthly repayments and if any of that money is not paid on time, uses exactly the same sort of recovery processes that the high street banks use. Zopa earns money by normally charging borrowers an exchange fee of 1% and if borrowers take out repayment protection insurance on their loan, receives commission from its insurance provider. Zopa doesn’t charge lenders a bean.”

Continue reading ‘Prosper, Zopa, P2P Lending - Heard of it?’

Centralized Identity Management

Published
by
John Erik
on July 30, 2006
in Ideas and Social Networks
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Services like this are, I believe, just the start of.

I believe social networks are the catalyst for the gradual move towards centralized identity management. Maybe I’m using the term Social Network too loosely, but I’m not sure there is descriptor yet for what I’m attempting to express. Maybe we can fill it in:

  • online identity
  • information integration
  • networks, groups

The “networking” part is only a drop in the puddle. It’s the idea of centralized management of your online identity AND all the information and resources that are pertinent to you.

It’s the unity of services like start.com or google.com/ig with Facebook or MySpace. It’s all the data and the resources on your computer, its all your pictures, its everywhere you leave your mark in cyberspace, its your bookmarks. …If it is all that, is it also you credit score, your social security number, your bank accounts?

And, it’s available anywhere – via Wi-Fi. :)

If only there was a social-network standard. Like AT&T of the past, yes, it was a monopoly, but what unfolded was one of the greatest telecommunications infrastructures in the world.

Smart Mobs and Smart Business

Published
by
John Erik
on July 11, 2006
in Books, Ideas, Mobile Communication, School, Social Networks and Words
. Comments

Smart Mobs is an amazing book. Though I read pieces of it two seasons ago, the words and metaphors hold new meaning in light of my recent research. It is incredible to me that in 2002 Howard Rheingold could predict the future so accurately.

In the first section Howard talks about privacy and virtual identities. This got me thinking about a new technology we are using here at the University of Texas and some other recently widespread services.

The deal is, Mobile Campus finds businesses local to UT who want to advertise to students via their mobile phone. To facilitate their growth, they pay our Student Government one dollar per signup and give them other perks, such as paying for the redesign of the SG website (these details are accurate to the best of my knowledge). SG then push MC on the student body (especially freshman) as the official student discount program, replacing those little coupon books.

Yeah, it’s cool that SG gets some extra money, etcetera, but is the trade off really worth it? It’s a game of ratios and reach. The database Mobile Campus is creating is worth far more than anything they are giving SG. If MC could they wouldn’t give SG a cent (a better business model), but without them a corporation would never have the kind of reach that SG can provide.

These kinds of tradeoffs seem to be the trend amongst today’s successful marketing and advertising corporations. Take Google’s GMail for example, great service, I use it. But now because Google’s bots can search the contents of my inbox (one where I never delete anything) they can more accurately classify me. True, if I have to see ads it’s nice that they are relevant and I do trust Google, but isn’t our identity our own? Shouldn’t we receive most if not all of the revenue generated by its use? We are so used to our identities being sold and traded and getting nothing in return that we love GMail because it gives us something in return. However, that something is given in exchange for a type and scale of profiling that was never before possible.

Will we ever have a say in who sees the information that makes up our identity or see any of the revenue generated by their commodification? Reheingold’s second chapter, Technologies of Cooperation, made me envision a way it could be possible (I’ll elaborate more on this idea in another post).

You’re going to create breadcrumbs, if you don’t pick them up someone else will.

Escalating connectivity, commentary, and consciousness

Published
by
John Erik
on July 3, 2006
in Books, Ideas, Insight, Links, Mobile Communication, Social Networks and Words
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There are and have been many predictions on the path Wi-Fi will take and the role it will assume. The concluding chapter of Going Wi-Fi, published in 2003, gives 20 predictions – 10 of which I believe have come true. Some predictions are far fetched. A faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas predicted that by 2007 mobile communications devices will “be voice-controlled and use heads-up holographic display[s].” Unfortunately for many, it doesn’t look like 2007 will embrace this kind of future.

Nevertheless, these predictions were very insightful, covering the topics of business (maybe a wireless PBX), medical care (24hour vital monitoring and reporting), etcetera, but something was missing. And that was any allusion to the growth of social networks, virtual identities, or the like. Social networking, used in a broad sense, is big now, but the spread of wireless, I believe, will transform the revolution; connecting people, groups, and intelligence in ways never before possible.

We, the participants in the MySpace generation, the blogging generation, and others are connected to an identity, and/or identities, in cyberspace. The strengthening of that bond is parallel to the spread of Wi-Fi (most importantly, free Wi-Fi) and the doggedness of cellular; simply, more convenient, efficient, and economical access to the World Wide Web.

The blogosphere and projects such as WeFeelFine.org have been invaluable to sequentially interpreting the status of society as a whole. However, the nature of blogging is not conducive to real-time feedback. Wi-Fi, the great Last Mile, offers this.

Moblogging, radar.net, mobile video sharing, elements of Web 2.0, to name a few are the current tools moving a nearly synchronous Info Strada. What does the future hold? I believe the exponential growth of social networks and their assimilation of mobile communication devices is foreshadowing a trend towards increased Interconnectedness.

As it becomes easier to mirror ourselves and our lives virtually, it becomes more significant to mirror the state of cyberspace as a whole, and relay it back to its elements. Components seeing themselves as an integral part of a whole, then acting and reacting based on the state of the collective, the world – this is the model for self-consciousness; and a step for progress.

Social Networks for Good

Published
by
John Erik
on July 1, 2006
in General, Ideas, Insight, Social Networks and Words
. Comments

socialnotesRecently, I have been staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading everything I can on social networking and giving other people’s blogs and inboxes lots of love. So, this is the start of collecting those messages and adding them to my blog.

I spent some of tonight on Networked Publics. A very cool blog sponsored by The Annenberg Center for Communication at The University of Southern California. The topic was “Is MySpace a place?” There were other comments before mine. In response to those and the original topic I had to say:

I love all this talk about something I do every day, something I have grown up doing: hanging out on mySpace, facebook, AIM or a chat room.

MySpaces is a space. It is a “space” because that is the word my generation uses to refer to the concept you are debating. Remember, we look at things different. If I like a band, I can be that band’s friend, if I like Al Gore’s new movie I can be friends with it on mySpace. These things (movies, bands, political movements, people) are just ideas and concepts that we think are cool enough (in mySpace terms) to friend.

Reputation: How you fill your space tells who you are and what you care about (marketers love this); or more likely, how you would like to be seen. Who would you let hang out in your space?

I think as more and more employers do Google searches, etc of potential employees, how you fill these spaces becomes very important. This is good for me. I take it as healthy pressure to do the right thing. After all, even if I don’t post those pictures of me chugging beers and running around naked, someone else might and they will probably tag my face to my name.

What is the bad side? The fear of being watched can leading people/kids to take on secondary identities; going by an alias, or many. Generally this is not bad. People do this indirectly in the real world all the time. However, I would theorize that being void of all pressure is not a good thing. Especially for already repressed youth. What would you do if you were invisible?

I’m very interested in discussing these topics. I see so much potential for good, such as using the excitement and addiction of social networks to increased communication within teams and teach online collaboration. Creating a social classroom, if I knew my work could be seen by my peers I might want to do a better job, because even if I don’t care what my teacher thinks, I probably care what my peers think.

Any thoughts from the 20+ people that visit my blog but never comment? :)

Openomy - Intresting name, Great Idea

Published
by
John Erik
on June 21, 2006
in Ideas and Links
. Comments

Foreshadowing how we will access information in the future, Openomy:

What is Openomy? Openomy is an online file system. You can store files on Openomy and access them from any computer. Openomy organizes files and users via tags (as opposed to folders). You can choose to keep your files guarded by Openomy, or allow certain outside applications (of your choice) to do new and interesting things with your data.

Blogged with Flock

Photo Sharing 2.?

Published
by
John Erik
on June 13, 2006
in Ideas and Links
. Comments

Liesel Pollvogt of Tabblo, on Mashable.com:

Tabblo is a site you use if you want to tell a story or do something meaningful around a group of photos. The idea is to give people a really easy way to combine text and pictures in an attractive layout, and then give you various options for sharing that content with specific people only or the world at large.

I love the idea of using photos to tell a story. Especially when I’m on vacation, I wish my digital camera would allow me to attach a voice-note or message to one or a set of pictures. When I got home, I would spend less time trying to remember: what did the tour guide say about this building, what’s the name of this beach.

If I had that ability, the next step would be integration with something like Tabblo: Dock my Tabblo-enabled camera >> it brings up all the photos, and the notes >> I add some more notes >> pick a template of sorts >> set privacy >> send them up to the site >> all my subscribers receive a ping that I have new photos. Someone please do this, just let me know about it.

… radar might have the jump. They don’t need to reinvent the digital camera, voice-notes and text are already capabilities of most cameraphones.

Does someone know a good word for: a story created with photos?