Social Network Economy or new Digital Economy

Not my usual well thought out – *frowns at you* – post , just some jottings on the consumer economy.

BANKING 2.0 – social network personal banking and peer to peer loans will take off in a big way. Perhaps not the way Virgin Money/CircleLending, or Zopa or Prosper see it, but it will happen. Screws the banks in the same way Web 1.0 screwed Music industry. Not social media, straight p2p banking sites.

RECRUITMENT 2.0 – already recruitment is dead. In Australia, the big recruiters have been busily buying up any small recruitment company that has been able to place someone, in a sense “buying” placements, so their books look good. That’s not sustainable. But don’t think brokerage (web 1.0/2.0) like seek.com.au sites, think escrow/project management/recruitment like eLance and freelanceswitch. Not only do you find a lawyer and a secretary and a web designer but the site handles the project work too. Including loading up the media (podcasts for transcribing, .jpg plans, documents).

Love @gapingvoid on Twitter too. 🙂

ADVERTISING 2.0 well actually there’s a tonne on social media economy information . Hugh McLeod’s cartoon says it all. Remember Myspace, for all it’s numbers, only makes $2.17 per head per year. Purely Advertising sites don’t win. Others, with nearly as many numbers have no advertising and some make many hundreds times that (Habbo averages around $17.00 per month per head, no advertising, I believe). (my blog post on revenue for Social Networks)

MARKETING 2.0 in about 18months maybe sooner, we’ll see some truly enormous battles between consumer and company. The Apple vs iPhone unBricking is a mere tussle compared to some stupendously stupid actions that one or two of the big companies will make. Huge anti Marketing sites IHate(CompanyName).com will become an industry in-and-of itself – satellite communities of disgruntled consumers will make a massive dent on at least one Fortune 500 company.

CURRENCY 2.0 We move away into trading in the currency we prefer. If I live in Second Life and most of my disposable income is invested in there, I will give you an option to pay me in local real world currency OR virtual currency. Not just virtual world, Facebook Bucks (Acebucks by BuddyMedia) will grow and competitors will come out (Yahoo!Yen and New$Dollar).
The various countries taxation departments will catch on – in about ten years. Except China who are already dealing with it. Currently 6 billion yuan in online currency transactions (just under 1 billion US?). (see tax post and one from 2005)

MANUFACTURING 2.0 Not social media for marketing (mashup of office locations etc) but actually manufacturing online. Perhaps consumer as PROsumer in the full sense – the Ducati workshop online? Log on, help co-create the next product. Not media but things that y’know, go to the factory. Like that jeans factory in Second Life, they sent you the jeans. or threadless for t-shirts.

This is Second Life but we will start to see small virtual worlds – more like a virtual post I guess – coming out now, useful for small 3D projects like building a house. Little bits everywhere = web 3.0.
ARCHITECTURE 2.0 Saw an interesting 3D Wiki in Second Life – think wikipedia but of things, not text/images/video. You can pull out of wikitechture -moving between a flat web page and a 3D environment. Will house plans ever be the same again? And how will you stop the grandparents from adding on a GrannyFlat? 😛

Any other favourite disrupters? Not social media please – find either 3D or a real world model.

EDIT: great comments back from Twitter. @jonforeman suggest CafePress. Thinking about it – is MIY (make it yourself) personalisation OR manufacturing 2.0? I think that collaborative products such as a new Ducati or Fab@Home (hat tip: DDog) are truly all customers creating products for all customers no? And Andrew Boyd (@facibus) recommended I read Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin. @fanbloodytastic gave me Personal Manufacturing 2.0 (15 sites) from Everything 2.0.