here’s life

net business opportunity: an add-on for myspace, facebook, blogger, del.icio.us, youtube, etc that pulls them all together into a common interface that is better and allows you to add content to any of them, and it self populates over them all. That way, you don’t stick with something that is mediocre because of a lock-in and all your friends are there—all your friends are everywhere. And it’s all connected. It’s Web 2.0^2. Who wants to help me?

Here’s the thing. Capitalism works, and it works well. But, companies have realized that they don’t have to be the best, or even very good, all they go to do is use advertizing to hook customers, and then set things up so they are stuck. Or, be big enough that customers really have no other choice. (how many cable providers can you access?) What lets this work is the sad truth: People put up with it! People don’t demand, or even ask for the option to easily move on to something different if something better comes along. They put their lives into myspace, knowing that if virb.com comes along, they can’t move—their information, their cool profile setup, their global network, it’s all stuck in myspace. And they don’t tell Tom “I’d like to have export options. And if you could make friend requests, bullitin board posts, and messages all RSS so I can just plug them into my new blog, that would be great. I’m not going to sign up for your 24/7 ad machine until I know I can leave when I want to.” If the companies had that kind of customers, the customers would be better served, because the companies would have to actually compete on quality of service. Not just compete on the ability to get that initial sign up.

So, your mission, is to become a customer that cares about quality, that cares about choice. Also, if you want to, let’s build a system that short circuits the corporate lock-in strategy. At least for online social networking. We’ll work on telcom’s later.

So, I’m involved with this Internet Business Forum that is held at the church every friday night. By “involved” I mean I show up most weeks, take notes and wonder which of all the different ways to make money I could get into. I’ve got some major philosophical blocks that seem to crop up. First, I’m pretty lazy. I don’t really do a whole lot. But then there is the marketing thing. Most of the money you make on the internet seems to be by getting people to buy something. Pretty obvious. Problem is, I seem to have a fundamental problem with buying stuff. Sure, it’s the American Way, but everybody seems to be so focused on getting more and more, why should I encourage that? Then there is the problem of making money. Yes, you do need to make money—it’s part of life, it takes money to have food and raiment, but why should I try to get more? I have enough to survive, and I have much more than a huge percentage of the world. And that money has to come from somewhere—from the pockets and credit accounts of other people. So every dollar that I claim for myself is one less dollar that someone else has. Shouldn’t I try to save money instead? Buy things that are the best value, do without, invest in things that will make my expenses go down? That way, I can have more money to do other stuff with—like giving it to people or God. Speaking of giving stuff to people, that is really what I see as the optimum. I want to give to people, and let that help others find ways to save money, and give to others, and the chain goes on!* So, these are the preconceived notions that are floating around in my head as they talk about this way, and that system, and getting in on this other one. But, it’s, advertizing, and marketing…how are you adding value to the system? You are the middle man!

It is true that money, when reached for as a goal, will never be enough. And I can feel this greed rising in me when they talk about the large amounts of money to be made, for little effort. Or maybe it’s not greed persay, maybe it’s excitement at the opportunity to improve my situation. And, I have to remember, if I have more money, I have more money to give away! Robin Hood. I can take from one set of distant “friends” and give it to people I like more! I can write content to get people to click on ads, so I get money, meanwhile, I tell my real friends to get FireFox + Adblock + Filterset.G Updater to make so they don’t have to see the ads that I am polluting the world with.
What am I going to do? I’m not sure. I think I may need to throw out some of my illogical ideals and just offer a service and make a buck. After all, what do I do all day? I help to increase the price of airfares by not working for free. Traitor!

What do I want to do? Build house systems so efficient and cheap that they cost almost nothing and show others how to do the same. Like I can make a living off that. You need to get people to spend more, not less. That’s what keeps the economy going—people spending more, and more and more than they can afford.

*My feelings are influenced by the Free Software Movement, where everything is given away, and the more people you give it to, the better. [actually, I probably fell into the free and open source software community because I already felt that way inside]

Today I moved. My desk at work used to be one cube-set over from where it is now, but it is enough to change the whole environment. One of the cool things about the change is now I have a flatpanel monitor instead of a bulky CRT. Much of our group of 30 or so people are being rearranged. The purpose it to get the people who work together in position so that they might actually talk to each other and coordinate with each other. This is going to take a shift in Culture, but we may be able to break some of the “over the wall” syndrome. That is going to be the real change, not the fact that my cube is rearranged a little.
My bean plant is growing quite well at work. I used to just have a spider-plant-type critter, but a week or so ago, I found a bean in my pocket (must have fallen there when I was sorting beans earlier) so I stuck it in my flowerpot. A few days later, the dicot was growing out of the soil, and now it is reaching for the florescent lights with a pair of leaves. I’ve begun to leave the light on for it when I go home, so it can get all the light it can. Some other legumes caused a little more trouble. I was out at the park, and I found some beanpods from a tree. In digging out the seeds, I noticed the green, partially-hardened goo stuff that went between the seeds, so I kept some, and took it home and reconstituted it in a small, stemmed glass, setting (sitting?) it on the side of my sink. Unfortunately, I have this habit of memorizing my house, so that I can move about it without having to use some of my sense(s). So, a day or so later, I turn the corner into my kitchen, my right hand moves out, grabs the jar that is always at the corner of my sink (while my right arm turns on the light) and then the right hand snaps back tossing the jar into my left hand and then turning on the water. That’s about when I felt my right elbow had connected with the glass-of-goo, sending it onto the floor. My left leg attempted to nudge it onto the carpet, but I don’t think it thought of that until it had heard the crash, and identified it as glass breaking. And still the water ran. Tree-bean goo, while interesting, does not yet have a practical use identified. (Need a slow-hardening, semi-clear gel that is organic based?)
In other news, I’ve been playing frisbee lately–both disc golf and Ultimate. It’s fun, and Ultimate is lots of exercise. And I get most of the thorns out of my arms and hands by the time Sunday rolls around again. Maybe I should start being more careful, I don’t want to break a hip or anything. I guess really the problem is when I mow someone else down, not so much when I slide on my forearms attempting to catch the frisbee.

Congratulations to my two cousins (and fiance’s) who are getting married, and a call for prayer for my cousin and sister who are overseas, and a note of happiness for my nieces who are getting siblings.