Wednesday
Apr152009
CraigBucks!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 10:40AM | in Articles
Great piece about my idea for CraigBucks, written by the brilliant sci-fi thinker Annalee Newitz:
The Future of Money: DIY Currencies
Futurist Douglas Rushkoff, famous for correctly predicting the rise of social media, is trying to convince Craigslist's Craig Newmark to create “craigbucks.” He thinks it's the obvious next step in the evolution of money. “People could buy and sell things exclusively on Craigslist using craigbucks,” Rushkoff enthuses. “Sure they'll want to keep their Visas and their MasterCards, but they'll want a specialized, alternative form of cash too.”
more...
The Future of Money: DIY Currencies
Futurist Douglas Rushkoff, famous for correctly predicting the rise of social media, is trying to convince Craigslist's Craig Newmark to create “craigbucks.” He thinks it's the obvious next step in the evolution of money. “People could buy and sell things exclusively on Craigslist using craigbucks,” Rushkoff enthuses. “Sure they'll want to keep their Visas and their MasterCards, but they'll want a specialized, alternative form of cash too.”
more...
Reader Comments (7)
I have to commend you Doug. I've heard you introduced as one of the great thinkers of our time, but you act on your thoughts and encourage others to act as well. Often you are saying, "Show me examples. Who's doing this stuff?"
Outstanding.
As it happens, I have developed a business plan for a new currency.
More precisely, I have developed a business plan for a start-up that, en route to becoming a bank, provides individuals with new and improved ways to customize education, and to showcase and earn money from expertise (i.e., ways to become (more) creditworthy).
The plan has been praised by analysts at Microsoft, Amazon.com and top venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
An adaptation of the plan is online at http://www.LandofOpportuniTV.com.
An excerpt:
"The first market that a markets-maker will introduce is a price-transparent [2.1] online market for buying and selling advertisement spaces on single-creator media (e.g., blogs). The markets-maker will also introduce a barter currency [2.2] for use at the market. This novel combination will provide people with improved ways to earn money from expertise [2.3]."
Importantly, the advent of variants of this kind of bank is likely to be a key to hacking the current regime of banking regulation.
From a 2009 book co-authored by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor who originated the canonical Model of Disruptive Innovation:
“Regulations ultimately change in reaction to the innovators’ success in those markets.”
From a 2008 book co-authored by Clayton Christensen:
"In the last three decades, increasing numbers of cognitive
psychologists and neuroscientists...have produced a multitude of schemes to explain...that people learn differently from one another.
...Students need customized pathways and paces to learn."
"We state above that in the first phase of the disruption of the instructional system the software will likely be complicated and expensive to build. The reasons for this can be traced to the use of the existing commercial system when marketing the system, as noted previously, as well as to the relative immaturity of Web 2.0 software. Within a few more years, however, two factors that were absent in stage 1 that are critical to the emergence of stage 2 will
have fallen into place. The first will be platforms that facilitate the creation of user-generated content. The second will be the emergence of a user network, whose analogues in other industries would be eBay [i.e., an online market is a type of user network]...
...The data suggest that by 2019, about 50 percent of high school courses will be delivered online.
...80 percent of courses taken in 2024 will have been taught online."
Stanford economist Paul Romer, who originated New Growth Theory, which updates growth economics for the information age:
"Perhaps the most important ideas of all are...ideas about how to support the production and transmission of other ideas...North Americans invented the modern research university...As national markets for talent and education merge into unified global markets, opportunities for important policy innovation will surely emerge...There are...safe predictions. First, the country that takes
the lead in the twenty-first century will be the one that implements an innovation that more effectively supports the production of new ideas in the private sector."
Best,
Great stuff. I have actually been doing experiments with online marketplaces since 2002.
Would love to hear more about how you think craigbucks should be implemented.
Instead of CraigBucks, they should be called NewMarks :-)
This is hardly a new idea. A deli in Great Barrington, MA was doing their own currency in 1989.
http://smallisbeautiful.org/local_currencies/BTC.html
Indeed. Nowhere am I suggesting that complementary currencies are a new idea. It's terrific you recognize that there are many successful complementary currencies - as far back as 1989 or even as far back as the late middle ages, when they were preferred over central currencies.
What might be new, however, would be to develop a non-local, local-style currency. I spoke with Craig of Craigslist, and he's unaware of any currency developed for Craigslist, yet. So this much would be new, and something to think about trying. A non-local complementary currency that is earned rather than lent into existence, and that can exploit a non-local community of trust operating in the transparency of the net.
Winston - i LOVE NewMarks. This way it's more of a tribute to Craig than a brand steal, too. I'm going to figure out a way to put it all together.
Do you know Spondulix. A Romance of Hoboken by Paul Di Filippo (Cambrian, 2003)?
Henry Wessells
(Terran)