Read this article on Global Guerrilla's...
And it got me to thinking about how powerful hybrid systems that combine elements of a social network and elements of an MMO could be...especially when tied to location-aware functionality.
Simple example :
You want to create an open platform where people can exchange stuff. Theres already web sites out there for this that are having some degrees of success. But imagine you implement this using the social-network/MMO hybrid concept, call it E-trader...
-- within the system, there is a unit of currency. Call it credits.
-- prices for items, in credits, float on a open free market; supply and demand
-- users can earn credits by finishing missions
-- missions can be things like "transport item X to location Y", "hold onto item Z that you recieve from player A", etc. And the things are real things from the real world.
-- the missions themselves are created by users
-- completing missions also earns XP, and "talents" can be unlocked as you "level up"
-- the talents give you access to higher-level system functions, like serving as a storage node or creating more elaborate "missions",etc.
-- you also get special ranks and badges and such as you "level up"
-- the system is location-aware and runs of smart phones in addition to other platforms
-- credits can be exchange for real dollars by users on a floating exchange rate
-- whoever is running the servers to host this thing, get a small fee whenever credits are changed for dollars, and that is how they're making money.
The net effect, once you get a critical mass of users, would be a completely open-sourced, de-centralized, version of craigslist that can also provide delivery services. In real terms it looks something like this...
----------------
John is a level 46 Transporter, with 384,313 credits in his vault. His talent tree is specialized in ad-hoc deliveries of smaller items, which makes sense since he lives in San Francisco and likes to bike all over the place.
He's at lunch with some friends when his smartphone vibrates, he brings up his data-overlay on his eyeglasses and sees he's getting a ping from E-trader. Some noob has put in a low level request to have a iPhone 8 delivered to his apartment. The user has offered 5000 creds for the mission, which is barely above break-even given the cred-dollar exchange rate at the moment....
However, the mission is rated at 1000 XP...which is enough to put John over the top to ding level 47...and he's been wanting the next upgrade on the ad-hoc talent tree....and he'd been planning on going to Best Buy anyway. So he finishes his lunch and rides over to the Best Buy..where he always shopped for his gadgets lately because Best Buy had started offering discounts to higher level E-traders.
With his discount he gets the iPhone 8 for $20 off, which brings its cred cost down to 4,787. He rides the five blocks to the lazy noob's apartment and bumps phones to complete the mission. Five minutes later he is at Starbucks downing a Latte, which the 217 creds he'd earned from the noob mission more than covered...given what his cred/dollar exchange-rate widget was showing him at the moment.
With the caffeine pouring into his system, he unfolded his tablet to delve into his user sheet, he had to decide exactly what talent to unlock now that he'd dinged 47. If he went for 'Long-Distance Courier rank 3' he could gain access to longer distance runs around the city...but 'Mover and Shaker rank 2' would let him get first crack on higher level priority missions and higher level access to local storage nodes....
While he set his new rank badge to display on his profile,and on his shirt when the mood struck him, John membered the days when he'd worked 9-5 at a desk and couldn't imagine how he'd ever lived that way.
A few minutes later he was getting pinged again, it seemed someone had noticed that a new 'Mover and Shaker rank 2' was in the area and they had some paperwork that had to get downtown ASAP....their mission was offering 1000 creds, 2000 XP, and some loot from a nearby storage node...
---------------------
Once such platforms reach a critical mass, its potentially disruptive to status-quo economics IMHO.
