The Business Plan That Saves the World

First published March 12, 2009, in a comment on Continuations.com [27] 

albert, i think you hit the jackpot with that last paragraph. of course i am biased because that is exactly what i am working on. i am convinced that niche sites will lead the online identity revolution, because they will be able to provide better security against imposters and ultimately better trust overall.  
 
some additional thoughts: 
 
1. i agree there needs to be a central provider. what i am working on in my business is to create government of sorts where each niche social network is an independently run business, but has a say in how things are integrated and the rules for what the cloud can do. i want to be able to allow them to leave the network at any time. secession-friendly, i call it.  
 
2. the business model that we are focusing on is for a content publishers to use their original content as well as filtered RSS feeds to create a niche social network/news community. lead generation and ecommerce are the revenue drivers. i like to use the term "return on influence" -- because i think the future of publishing is in using content to earn trust/influence, which can then be used to generate revenue via endorsements and build a brand. then, each niche social network will "pay taxes" to the government, which will invest in creating data portability and paying for all the shared expenses that each niche social network will have (as they are using commoditized technology one of the primary expenses will be in funding open source communities....and as they may want to liquidate their investment [i.e. sell their niche social network] the "government" will need to enabling buying and selling of these niche social networks).  
 
each niche social network will also use virtual currencies to incentivize crowdsourcing, and virtual currencies can be used to purchase real products. the centralized "government" then works to ensure sound monetary policy, and also to serve as the market maker that manage exchange rates between the virtual currencies of each niche social network. i am particularly excited about this because i used to work at a forex market maker, and the profit margins were outrageous, so i think they can be great for virtual currencies as well.  
 
i think this model is on a trajectory to disrupt the nation-state, create new monetary policy via virtual currencies, and new financial markets as well. but of course, one step at a time.