Case Study #1, part 3 – Making Louis Gray a Mommy Blogger

Let’s take a quick look at Louis Gray’s “Father” hat that I mentioned in “Part 1” of this hypothetical case study and how it might earn him some money.

Under any hat, there may be one or more subhats.  Since Louis has twins, his personally chosen father hat might look like this:

• Parent
•   Father
•     Twins
•       Paternal
•         Boy/girl
•    Toddlers

Louis can be offered discussion groups to participate in, for any of these hats and subhats.  Like maybe he’d like to learn more about typical twin behavior as they get older and wants to talk to parents who have boy/girl twins of various ages.  Or Louis can create his own groups, if he so desires – perhaps inviting local people he meets from the Parents of Twin Toddlers social area, for example, to potentially create playgroups.

But even if he doesn’t participate in groups about parenting, he can still make content for them.

Let’s say that Louis decides to create a “lesson” on how to get your toddler(s) to eat vegetables, which is a video he has (hypothetically) shot.  He uploads it wearing his “Father-toddler” hat.  Two ads (maximum) are attached to it.  One is an ONI (Offers and Invites, pronounced “oh-knee”) that could promote any one of the products that Louis personally uses and recommends under that hat (if any).  One ONI in Louis’s collection might be for a tag blanket that his (hypothetical) friend Donna makes and sells by mail order. 

ONIs are demand fulfillment advertising and Louis would get compensated for every purchase made as a result of his ONI.  Most ONIs with take the form of discounts, like cents off coupons and deals like “buy one get one free.”

You know how the Japanese use their phones like a debit card to make purchases?  The Hive will utilize that technology, getting people who are skittish about allowing access to their funds to slowly adopt the concept, by first allowing access to their Hive account only.  So if I’m Louis’s online friend and I see him endorse a stroller available at my local Target that I’m very interested in, I simply “accept” the ONI.  At the store’s checkout, I allow my phone to be quickly scanned.  This gives me the discount and Louis the credit for my purchase. 

Notice how ONI advertisers don’t have to pay anything until and unless there is an actual sale!  This will help make the Hive extremely attractive to global, national, regional and local advertisers of all sizes.

I might have many items all at once, picked from numerous Hive co-members over several days.  I get a created shopping list (that’s up to you independent developers to build), a map that lays out the most gas-efficient path to shop the different stores I want to hit (ditto), special prices for many of my purchases, and credits for the people I took the ONIs from.

The second ad type that can be attached to Louis’s video will be a WHAM (from a military acronym meaning “winning minds and hearts”).  WHAMs are demand awareness advertising (which the Web can’t do, btw, a failure that is negatively impacting our economy).  Louis will get a percentage of the “pay per click” revenue generated. 

Everybody in the Hive will know that WHAMs are not endorsed.  But if enough people click “X” on an ad, then it will stop being distributed by the Hive.  Get enough terminations and the advertiser may be permanently dropped.

Note that both ONIs and WHAMs are appropriate to the hat in question, so they are most likely relevant.  The Hive can even help ensure relevancy by factoring in the receiver as well as the transmitter, as everything in the Hive is independent, but relational.

Note, too, that Louis (and everybody else) has the power to distribute the ads, not the advertisers themselves.  This holds advertisers accountable (e.g., give your top executives millions of dollars in bonuses while laying off workers and helping yourself to public funds, and your advertising will likely STOP!) 

The price charged for WHAMS will depend on the demand for the ad inventory of a particular hat or subhat.  The highest paying ad will be the one that actually gets placed (similar to the way that Adsense works).  BUT, this can be overridden, because members themselves are in control.  At any time, users can give the products and services they like a break, to help them get started.  Again, this ensures that individuals, startups and small companies can compete against large corporations with deep pockets. 

So now let’s say that Louis’s video is so funny and well liked, it jumps to other hats and then goes viral.  What started out as a free video will automatically start being charged for.  The price depends (as it always will in the Hive) on

1. demand factors
2. the size of the audience it is being presented to

The price is dynamic and can change within minutes, or even seconds if something is going viral.  Of course, the price can go down as fast as it went up as the saturation point within first-adopton circles is reached.  The lower price could then generate a second wave that penetrates the Hive deeper, and so on.

Remember that the Hive is broken down into lots of different spaces – all those geometric shapes that represent individual broadcasts and group discussions.  If Michael Arrington wants to put Louis’s video into TechCrunch’s feed, then he’s going to pay much more than if Jane Doe wants to show it to a small intimate group of friends.  (Note: Ads never get attached in Intimate space.)

But here’s the thing.  If people start cloning Louis’s video from Arrington’s feed in order to place it elsewhere, then Arrington will get a cut of that money, along with Louis.  Also, ARRINGTON’S ads will be on the video when it is shown in TechCrunch’s feed, not Louis’s.   And they won’t be for taggie blankets but relevant to Arrington’s tech-curious readers.  And Louis will get a cut of that revenue, too, just as he will if the video is shown in a biker group and has Harley ads attached. 

Arrington’s readers will get to see the video for free.

***This is the same way that newspapers and magazines work. Publishers pay for created content (from employees or free lancers or syndicates) and then get compensated because that content becomes ad inventory.***

So Hive users will be constantly debited and credited as they naturally give and take with the Hive, doing essentially the same things that we are already doing now.  Nobody will have to put in their own money.  Advertisers will supply the bulk of the cash that gets allocated by Hive activity.  For many Hive members, their account will be a wash, but others will come out ahead, some will be able to earn a living and a small percentage may even “get rich.”  In the Hive, content is financially rewarded.  The better the content, the more money it will generate.

But money doesn’t just go to creators, but also to distributors.  Creators get a larger cut for the selling of an object than distributors do; distributors get a larger cut of the generated ad revenue than creators do. 

If you have purchased a copy for any sized group, it will be stored in your chamber and can be retrieved by search via “the beeline,” which can also benefit you, but that’s a future post.

I want to make one last point while I’m using Louis Gray as an example.  Here is a photo of his adorable twins:

In the Hive, ownership is respected.  In the Hive, I would have to pay a small amount to Louis to use his photo in a post like this one.  Perhaps Louis wouldn’t even want to allow that.  He will have the ability to control how this photo is distributed.  He can say that it can go to “intimates” only, and perhaps “intimates of intimates.”  Or maybe even to tech hats only. 

BUT if Louis does not make such restrictions, then anybody can take this photo and use it in a mashup.  Though Louis would be compensated for that use (for the initial taking of it and if any revenue is generated from the new piece), he does lose creative control.

***The reason for this is because all deposits into the Hive will always be subject to the community’s creative forces, unless objects are restricted to relatively small groups.***

 More on this with the next hypothetical case study, featuring Lane Hartwell and the infamous Bubble video.

Advertisement