[projectvrm] V-msg.net -- a VRM messaging system BETA

[Jim Bursch < >]

Hello All

I hope I'm not premature in opening this up to you all, but I am excited for you to take a whack at it and get some feedback.

Take a look at http://v-msg.net

In the past month or so I have completely re-tooled MyMindshare as a messaging system -- what I would call a commercial messaging system, rather than a social messaging system. And of course VRM weighed heavily on my mind as I developed it.

The feature that you will find most novel is the bidding system. Currently we have a marketplace on the web in which megaphones are mass produced and getting cheaper and louder every day. The result is a cacophony of vendor messages (imagine a Renaissance Fair where everyone selling turkey legs uses a bull horn to drum up business). In the MyMindshare system, instead of handing out megaphones cheaply, they are rented out, and the louder the megaphone, the more expensive it is. Also, vendors can't all send their messages at the same time -- they have to get in line and users choose the order in which they line up. Also, the megaphone rental fee goes to the users, not the landlord of the marketplace.

I think the personal cloud people will find the dynamic profile interesting. Essentially it enables the user to build a rich profile (data set) that is actionable in the MyMindshare system. By actionable I mean that messages can be delivered to profiles in a way that is highly relevant to the user, while protecting the data and the identity of the user. Also the user is in nearly complete control of the data. The only piece that is missing is portability. The profile is built incrementally in the form of simple yes/no questions that put a light touch on usability and user bandwidth. As a result, the interface for targeting messages is simple and transparent.

There is also direct messaging, which supports what I hope will be true conversations in the marketplace, as in "markets are conversations".  #hashtags function as conversation topics. When you eliminate economy of scale in message delivery, it is cheaper to send a message to selected people than it is to broadcast. Vendors and friends are on equal footing for message delivery, with friends by nature having an advantage (economically speaking).

A rating system enables users to collectively judge the relevance of messages, and because of the nature of the delivery system, only those people who are intended to be recipients are the judges of the relevance of messages.

I tried to write a meaningful privacy policy, which you can review here:
http://v-msg.net/b/secure/privacy.php

I also tried to write a decent Terms of Service. The human part is in the preamble, while the rest is pretty much defensive legalese:
http://v-msg.net/b/secure/terms.php

I would really appreciate any feedback the community can give me. Of course I would be thrilled if  this is something that the community could endorse.

-- 
Jim Bursch
310-869-5340

 
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http://mymindshare.com
@jimbursch