A Focus on Identities & Marketplaces
Marketplaces are the most powerful forces in the world today. What makes it so? It's all about market actors expressing their supplies and demands on exchanges. Continuous value creation and exchange. Just take a look at Amazon stores, Airbnb, Freelancer, the commodity markets, foreign exchanges, and such. But all said, the potential of marketplaces is still largely untapped. We have a long and winding road ahead before becoming a very well-connected species. Not all of us are involved in the markets, nor do we even express ourselves well enough in functional metadatas to establish continuous trade connections with the rest of the world.
While organisations like Google and Amazon has been mining information out of their users to establish marketplaces via recommendation algorithms, this is still nowhere near the great potentials offered by peer-to-peer marketplaces that could be powered by blockchain technologies.
Here's what I think will happen. Users that leverage on blockchain records to establish their opt-in, trusted identities will be empowered to generate their own list of supplies and demands that could be fulfilled by the markets at any given time. Identities generate comprehensive data points. Intelligent application layers could form patterns on identities, provide suggestions, and encourage users to define their markets in order to take part in an effective peer-to-peer marketplace. Identity, anonymous or not, could lead to trustworthy marketplaces, thus providing liquidity for both human and material capital.
Now, how do we really define identity? It's something that we continuously discover through self-expression and interactions with our environment. This goes against the grain of mainstream identity applications being used today. They are pretty much one-off data entries and sparsely updated, made real by the forces of government. In the blockchain era, would anyone really trust you if you just put up a one-off set of objective and measurable identifications like we do in traditional spaces? Yes, it will most likely still work. It's just hard to imagine the shift away from traditional authoritative sources at the moment, but blockchain technologies are kinda showing us that we're able to truly own our identity and assets for the first time.
Or perhaps, would it be better for the rest of the network if our expressions on trusted blockchains become part of our social identity? Proof-of-work for us human beings, so to speak. Information required to form our consensus on identities tend to improve over time. Maybe I'd be more likely to form better trust going through any account's contents, activities, and responses from the community. This is just like how trust networks have shifted from social platforms provided by governments to the ones provided by organisations like Facebook and Uber. Invested identities could very well lead to active peer-to-peer marketplaces.
Taking it further, this is why I think decentralised social media platforms are a better way to establish opt-in identities that could in turn, transform our social networks into the most powerful marketplaces of tomorrow. So here are some design philosophies for Steem applications that may make this a reality:-
Design machine-learning algorithms that encourage users to better populate the data-points of their identities and markets.
Fantastical or not, what makes users invest in their opt-in identities on a certain blockchain has a lot to do with price. This requires investors and speculators. From a business perspective, such a currency would then seem like the answer to anyone's problems. Markets are driven by stories that feel like reality. Reality, or the perception of it can be constructed through technology, especially UI/UX. With the new SteemConnect application coming out soon, we'd get a glimpse into a decentralised applications and UI/UX stack that enables any users to seamlessly discover and experience all the different sides of Steem in order to gravitate towards their individual preferences. This is how users will start investing in the system.
Metadata formalisation for universal marketplaces could very well be derived from social contracts. RDC tools could guide loosely worded expressions into evolving smart contracts. But to start simple, we should begin by building recommendation tools that are universal for 90% of our use-cases in order to better populate the "database" of peer-to-peer marketplaces. In the rush into the blockchain space, we may be able to assume that a majority of market actors have their own set of supplies and demands that are exchangeable for a myriad of cryptocurrencies.
Opt-in automated, passive communications and records on the blockchain through personal sensory data could also augment identities (or stories), feeding into the formation of individual marketplaces. Plenty of privacy issues of course, but I'm just brain-farting here.
Definitely @kevinwong, The most powerful force around the world now, the marketplace. All of human things decided in demand & supply chain system. Take a demand from customers and its supply by market place. Now huge marketplace has around the world. All of handling throgh network. Most E-marketing companies has, so will be huge marketing competition each other marketers. So lot of companies try to keep their customers use various market tricks. Also new vision creating from them. They try to establish trade connection via on internet services. If not will be their business drop down.
I think social media usage better for focus on Identities market places. Currently Facebook doing best marketing promotional work. Huge crowd online there and marketplace blogs sharing to social media users, it will be rise up more customers and then after increase their supply. supplies and demands that are exchangeable to market actors. cannot trust all of digital medias, have some trusted one like as steemit.
More demand equal more supply. Without demand no what will they supply? Great conversation & Nice presentation music you finally enter your blog @kevinwong.
Resteemed.
I'm thinking about trust and reputation for fictional accounts, obviously for privacy matters. Anyway, most of what we do in social media networks most of the times don't really represent our identity. Half-fiction. Yet most of the times we can reliably trade with each other as long as there's a history of communication in a social network.
yes its true iam agree with u @kevinwong
social networks are really the most powerful marketplaces of tomorrow - you're absolutely right, Kevin!
you just see the roots. Who makes investments in this sphere now that will win i future by all means.
Social networks has a great potential.
The post is very informative!
Social networks + resources = boom, leading to stories, leading to creation of value
So do you think peer to peer marketplaces could rival giants like amazaon? It's kind of hard to wrap my head around it for now :)
I think Amazon understands this and is going big, they just bought 3 domains with amazon and crypto-related names.
Definition of identity can be such a huge topic. We are now exist because the centralised government acknowledge our existance. Blockchain has a long way to go to replace this system.
But who's to deny you if you choose the blockchain as your identity (even if fictional) and there's a community supporting that motion? Voluntary vs forced networks..
Very important article @kevinwong. Without market place we cannot find our necessary things, it mean our life wanted. So How are we living on the planet without market place. The marketplace being no.1 point currently on the planet. All of markets attached through online network system. In future will build huge E-marketing sites. Customer cant go outside for buy something. Only wanted stay home. Wow...whats the surprise?
That's why I never got involved in physical retail business lol.
Excellent article, you are right, technology blockchain can be implemented in any spectrum of our lives and for the super market giants it is quite possible. Special thanks for the video @kevinwong :)
This was an enjoyable read. Great stuff. My favorite of the bullet points you made: "Opt-in automated, passive communications and records on the blockchain through personal sensory data could also augment identities (or stories), feeding into the formation of individual marketplaces." quote from @kevinwong
🍎Thanks for being a new favorite!
yes iam agree with u @lorilikes
Thanks for checking it out :) appreciate the thumbs up.
This is really interesting @kevinwong and I haven't thought of it this way thanks for sharing this perspective but regardless it seems there will still be plenty of privacy issues.
Wow, it's a very exciting technology. I also think that technology and media. It will continue to develop. Soon we may see the launch of digital coin-operated applications. It will certainly be a transparent investment in digital coin. Thank you for good information and good music video. Good job. 👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻
Yeah, it's already working in some ways. There are very popular fictional accounts on Twitter / FB that can be trusted on their merchandise sales and delivery. Just one example that social identities can be somewhat redefined.
Yes, this is an online society that covers people of all ages. Therefore, we will see the development of modern technology more and more. I believe it must be that.
True what you say, the market is the first place we have to master.