Bynamite idea!

This New York Times link about a start-up that proposes to pay users for their personal information might be hidden by tomorrow, so I'm cherry-picking quotes here:

“Our view is that it’s not about privacy protection but about giving users control over this valuable resource — their information,” Mr. Yoon said.

...

Every search on Google, Mr. Acquisti notes, is implicitly such a transaction, involving a person “selling” personal information and “buying” search results. But people do not think about, or are unaware of, the notion that typed search requests help determine the ads that Google displays and what its ad network knows about them.

Bynamite, Mr. Acquisti said, is “simply trying to make these kinds of transactions explicit, more transparent to the user."

...

In essence, the company has a libertarian, free-market ethos. If consumers have more power and control, it says, personal information should flow more efficiently to the benefit of both consumers and advertisers, who will be able to more accurately aim their ads.

...

IF Bynamite gains momentum, Mr. Yoon predicts that individuals will be able to use their portfolios of interests as virtual currency. He calls the idea a “consumer’s preference wallet.

I've said several times that Facebook can have, resell, and use my personal info for the low, low price of $20. Let's make it $25 because I'm a good capitalist.

That number should be way higher, because Zuckerberg knows they're making way more than $25 off each user. But I like to play nice, and thanks to scarcity rules, I don't have a lot of bargaining power. So 25 bucks for my name, email address, and marketable interests. I've never heard or read on the whole wide Internet anyone else making that kind of claim, and I'm surprised about it.

I normally acquiesce to charges of curmudgeonly behavior. I'm not proud of it, but sometimes it's accurate. But this quirk doesn't belong in that category. This is one of those rare instances where I'm right and everyone else is wrong for some reason.

You should expect a cut of the money when someone uses a resource you provide. I doubt this will be a pure, beautiful, cash-based transaction that I want. But it shows me I'm not completely alone in my thinking.

Frogmarch

For over a year, I've been trying to get hired to write for computer games professionally. This is one of the harder things I've ever tried to intentionally do. There are many people vying for a very few jobs, and I'm not ideally situated to act on it.

I'm doing it anyway.

I've dithered on whether to include my "game professional" blog link here, because these sorts of new ventures are fragile, and can be killed by premature exposure.

However, my definition of "premature" is often equivalent to someone else's "adolescent." I don't like revealing things until they're basically done. The elephantine problem with that schema is that I seldom have the resources to do something completely by myself. So the half-baked thing is either revealed as half-baked, or worse, never revealed. So I'm kicking this one out while it's still young. It's rough, but I'll try polishing in public and see how that works out.

To further my streak of mixed metaphors, let me add: My good, old friend Tom Briscoe used to say, "If you don't execute your ideas, they die." Most of my best ideas expire before they make it to the executioner's stand.

This is one more halting attempt to get one up to the guillotine.

At your leisure, peruse Dire Curious, my "breaking into the game biz -- again" blog. DC serves several purposes for me.

1. Professional development: You don't have to have a gaming blog to get hired on gaming, but I'm not knowledgeable or well-connected enough (yet) to skip it.
2. Personal marketing: I'm terrible at this, and I need the practice.
3. Experimentation with Wordpress: So far, I prefer Blogger, but everybody says it's great. I need to find out if it is or ain't first-hand.
4. Disciplined writing: I know I'm a more capable writer than I ever show anyone. I can be better. I have to do it more to make it real.
5. Another try: This attempt to "do something" may get left by the curb in a few weeks like so many other projects in my life, and I'll feel the same sort of sickly shame I always feel if that happens. But I'm pretty sure I believe the truism that you have to try a bunch of things and see which one sticks. So this is the next one of the bunch.

I'll keep a link to DC in the Ventures sidebar, but I'll probably never link back. On this blog, I give myself permission to appear neurotic and lazy and unhireable. Those traits don't belong where I'm trying to behave industriously and professionally.

Consignment

Every once in a while, someone sees something you got and wants to talk to you about combining your thing with their thing. Maybe they want to hire you, or perform with you. In college, the student ministries director thought I'd be perfect to preach in Guam for a summer.

These propositions are a little magical. They mean someone looked at you and saw merit and wanted to risk a little something on you.*

Historically, I stumble all over these offers. I get self-conscious and either back away thinking I can't live up to it (cf. Guam) or freeze up when called to produce (cf. lots of other things).

But this year, I told myself the next time one of these offers came I would grab it with both hands.

At Art Shop this year, a consignment shop owner, Square Peg Artery near Rittenhouse Square, was cruising the aisles looking for talent. We talked, we traded business cards, and she followed up.

It's not a big opportunity, but it's big enough to start with. I'm learning marketing with my bare hands, and this is another round of class. Get the product out there. Make money if you can, lose it if you must, but get eyeballs on your goods.

I'll try real hard not to fumble this one. And if I do, I damn well mean to learn something from it.

The picture, by the way, is of a monster available at the Artery. Swing by their store at 108 S. 20th St and take a look around while you're out xmas shopping.


*Precluding scammers and the deluded. Those types are usually easy to spot if you're doing due diligence. I'm talking about the genuine article here.