VRM at SXSW 2012

I just learned via Mark Scrimshire (@ekivemark) that a VRM panel — Are Free Customers Better Than Captive Ones? — has been accepted for the next SXSW. That means people voted for it, even though I had forgotten about it and didn’t promote it all. (Did anyone else? Dunno yet.) The location is listed as Startup Village – Downtown Austin Hilton, which I gather is this one.

In any case, it’s way cool, and I look forward to seeing lots of you there.

Meanwhile Mark has invited me (and therefore us) to participate in HealthCamp Boston in Fall 2012. Looking forward to that, too.

Signs of progress

The bottom line (literally) of this report on the Consumer Energy Summt in the UK is this piece of excellent news:

…energy companies have agreed to give consumers access to their data in electronic format as part of the government Midata programme.

Connect.me, a VRM company, gives us a way to construct “trust frameworks” among ourselves. They have worked to make this as game-free as possible. Check it out.

Twitter search for VRM.

Singly and Locker Project getting mojo as Jeremie presents at Web 2.o, on Day One. (Too bad  Web 2.0 co-happens on the calendar with IIW.)

Smári McCarthy: The End of Artificial Scarcity. Required reading.

Phil Windley on personal event networks.

In a session at IIW: EventedAPIs vs./+ ActivityStreams. Bonus link.

ProgrammableWeb’s directory of APIs.

Hypothes.is will be discussed this afternoon at IIW. “Peer review for the Internet.”

John Battelle wishes Tapestry existed. Connecting the dots. Recalling the database of intentions. Mentioning Singly and Locker Project.

e-Patient Dave: Is “Gimme my damn data” coming to radiology at last??

Vetted as VRM companies:

• Lemon, blogged about by Mashable.
• Howtru.
• About.me.

Bonus links:

• First Look: The Web’s Most Ambitious Personal Data Project, Singly, Goes Live Today (readwriteweb.com)
• Update on Personal Event Networks: The Evented API Spec (equalsdrummond.name)
• Phil Windley on Personal Event Networks (equalsdrummond.name)
• Avaya Flare Experience as a Tapestry App (avaya.com)
• Brin: “I’m Not A Social Person” But “Google+, I Instantly Found Compelling” by @dannysullivan (searchengineland.com)
• A Big Issue: Taking Control of Your Own Identity and Data – Sing.ly Founder Responds (battellemedia.com)
• Watch Day Three Of The 2011 Web 2.0 Summit (techcrunch.com)

Prototyping a new business model for everything

For IIW next week, Craig Burton and I have been working on a prototype demonstrating EmanciPay, using ListenLog on the Public Radio Player app from PRX.  The description at the EmanciPay link is minimal so far, but the model has a great deal of promise, because what it puts forward is a new business model for all kinds of stuff: easy voluntary payments from anybody for anything, to escrow accounts where the money can be picked up by the intended recipient with no strings attached. The first target is public radio (as it has been, ever since the earliest ProjectVRM meetings at the Berkman Center), but it could easily apply to newspapers and other media as well.

We still need financial institutions to weigh in and take up a new business model for themselves, and it would be cool if some of them showed up at IIW next week for that, but in any case we’re taking one small step in the direction of a major sea change in the way markets for media work.

I’ve been making test contributions to different public radio stations, using the EmanciPay prototype. Craig has hacked a way for this to show up in my Twitter stream. You can see those here.

Some additional links to related topics:

• Declining Resources For Journalism (eschatonblog.com)
• Breaking out your core assumptions (giffconstable.com)
• ListenLog (ProjectVRM blog)
• NPR prepares for a new reality (politico.com)
• A simple lesson learned from Steve Jobs (chron.com)
• R-Buttons and the Open Marketplace (blogs.law.harvard.edu)
• EmanciPay (ProjectVRM blog)