When I saw the integration, I gave it a try but when Pandora started playing songs in my stations based on what my friends liked, I was out. That’s rather antithetical to the music genome project purpose. The idea wasn’t to be social music radio, it was to discover music based on music you already like. And it works well. My muddy the waters by going “social”?

While I’ve been focusing on need for and benefits of such a system in terms of better governance… and reference to the ‘pre-currency’ fundamentals of transaction…

In terms of “startup world” (not my specialty), its best to view as an Internet ‘wallet system’ good for ALL types of transactions but that the system can significantly reduce and in some cases eliminate middleman transaction costs because of its monetization potentials in campaign/charity services, advertising and the opportunities offered by the ubiquitous nature of its market and dedicated patented functions.

Anyway, just a thought… could be just gobbledygook… but wanted to pass it on.

In the search realm Google has given us the ability to remove sites we do not want in our search results and no doubt will follow it soon with suggestions of others we may not like – using their similar site option.

Perhaps we need to create these personas ourselves with a platform like Tweetdeck that lets us swap between accounts. If I want to see information related to my sports interests I can go that way – or maybe they recognize it for me once I make my first site decision. The people I interact with during that ‘site set’ become my ‘social circle’ for that occasion similar to the real world where I have friends that I go to the pub and watch the games with versus those I spend time discussing business or the kids or any of the numerous social aspects of me.

With behavioral targeting we can get ads sent to us, so the system has to be able to be applied to our social circles. We should be able to tell the system we don’t want to see an ad anymore after it annoyingly follows us, so why not be able to have an area where people outside our current interest circle can attempt to reach us and like caller id be able to pick and choose who and how we engage with them.

Create that and then the relevance of many things improves.

As concisely as possible:

Dear Mr. Battelle and Mr. O’Reilly,

You guys are the real deal in the whole ICT/Web 2.0/Gov 2.0 etc sector. You put together the events that make for the necessary face-to-face that finally gets things done.

I believe this needs to get done:

Political monetary participation must be unencumbered and simplified (including especially at the micro-transaction level), its networking must be facilitated and the utility that enables that must be (in some form) universally owned. I also believe it can and should be self-supporting and governed by its users.

I believe the method and model are in rough form noted above but am certainly open to alternative formulations.

I hope that you will at some point find it worthy of consideration for serious discussion and response.

Actually I think its inevitable, but the time lag is becoming problematic.

Interestingly (though not surprisingly) if all else fails this will likely arise either via efforts of frustrated Progressive and/or Libertarian-Tea Party elements in this country. They tend to be the ones I find that get most excited by the concept.

And then the political establishment will have no choice but to acquiesce out of embarrassment if nothing else.

I’m just trying to get it built right and obviously can’t do that by my little lonesome.

“The key is to completely separate the holding of identity information from the usage of it. There could be one of multiple platforms/utilities that hold identity information that users completely own and control. They then decide where and what part of their identities they parse to what users of their identity.”

And I believe the core utility that should hold that information and which users should own and control… is something I’ve been thinking about for a while… and it has a relation to another issue Rishi Dave mentioned… payment systems…

(Big points to Rishi Dave)

I believe there are certain transactions that MUST be simplified and unburdened… and in accomplishing that other social benefits arise…

One of which being the establishment of just the sort of utility you mention:

The Commons-dedicated Account & Network

Patent #7,870,067 just granted by USPTO 01/11/’11

A neutral network of accounts for political, charitable and speech related monetary participation… which in order to properly network and scale individual capability must allow a viable, one-button, secure and financially unburdened micro-transaction. Such a network ideally should maintain its own cloud and bank. Accounts may be created and/or maintained with zero balances and/or only momentary balances during a pass-through transfer (monetization model requires no burden on the actual transaction.)

From user’s perspective it’s similar to Facebook credits or X-box points except for Commons-oriented functions instead of games, etc. …and most critically NOT adding to or drawing from transaction costs.

Demo and FAQ http://www.Chagora.com
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/culturalengineer
Civilization Systems Blog http://CulturalEngineer.blogspot.com

Regarding its potential in politics, especially for networked citizen lobbying and as an ESSENTIAL tool for citizens participation:

Addressing Two Problems:

1. Simplifying the process: “…[campaign contribution] could become much easier if campaigns can figure out how to allow people to donate by making the process easier through one click pay methods and a short form for the additional FEC information required.” – Katie Harbath, chief digital strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee… now with Facebook

2. The need for a viable tool for voter response to the Citizens United Decision and broadening the citizen’s capability for participation in general.

THESE PROBLEMS HAVE NOW BEEN SOLVED!

For simple illustration of the principal:

Some round figures: $25 times 150 million voters is $3,750,000,000.
That would be all of 50 cents a week (giving you even a couple of weeks off for holidays!)

Now I’m not suggesting that it would work exactly that way… but I am suggesting there’s a whole lot more potential there if it can be tapped… if it can be made easy enough that it becomes part of your regular life…

I believe that CAN and MUST happen.

The potential for additional monetization of news and journalism is synergistic icing on this cake.

While a very pragmatic model… its roots rest in a view on the roots of transaction in human society.

Anybody wanna do something useful?

P.S. I’ve pretty much abandoned the ICT type blogs but making headway with some of the economics/political types… its just a matter of time and opportunity. Though frankly the planet’s running short of both.

On the Birth of the Global Social Organism

Finding Roots in a Shifting Landscape: Facebook and the Future of Social Networks

Decision Technologies: Currencies and the Social Contract