I wanted to give you all an update on the ActoNetwork, the business network I am working to establish.

The idea is to build niche social networks.

You mean like Ning?

Sort of. But not really. Ning is more about creating machine intelligence. My focus is on human intelligence.

You mean like Mahalo?

Lol. Sort of, in a way. We focus more on what I'll call "the flow web" -- RSS, AJAX, APIs, distributed data, blah blah blah....

But that's not the biggest difference.

The biggest difference is that we tell the Truth. We focus more on 9/11 Truth, less on alleged Eva Longoria sex tapes. (Developers: think about that the level of psychological maturity of the executives behind the platforms you invest in before you invest in their platform. Remember, your business is on the line. You're going to want someone who's informed, and who understands their obligation to be honest and give you important information.)

So it's like Mahalo + Ning?

+ Tumblr.

How Far Along is the ActoNetwork In Its Plan to Liberate the World?

The process by which niche social networks built upon commoditized technology, APIs, and RSS feeds (in accordance with the principles of the Inverse Universe) is now in place. Now the formula for adding human intelligence, and the details of the business model around that, needs to be clearly understood.

A few thoughts:

1. Creating custom communities for consumer-facing businesses to help them educate customers. This is my favorite usage. A key consideration, though, is that markets themselves are being re-organized around new intermediaries (think group buying, consumer communities, stuff like Etsy, Zazzle). This is one of the many reasons I want to go after bloggers and work with them closely -- I seem them to be promising and potentially great intermediaries. Alternatively, for businesses that sell products and hence cannot operate as objective intermediaries, a niche social network is essentially how they can use social media to enhance their database marketing capabilities, so that they can better learn about their customers and increase their share of customer wallet in doing so.

2. Corporate e-learning tool. As the corporation gets increasingly virtualized, having their own niche social networks can help build and sustain work relationships between divisions that are geographically dispersed. Also, as we are getting deeper into the knowledge economy, having organized information reservoirs is becoming increasingly critical as well. The ActoNetwork offers a "corporate social media" solution, as paradoxical as that may seem.

3. The VC tool. Become an ActoVC! This is the "roll your own YCombinator" type service. You get a news community, you get to interact with prospective entrepreneurs you may fund (or one for your portfolio, or one for them all, or configured by a permissions system....whatever you want!), and as you microchunk your portfolio (i.e. lots of small bets), a comprehensive information portal can give you the intelligence edge you need (and the intelligence edge your portfolio companies need as well). You can also use a social news community to profile prospective entrepreneurs by their skill set and by their sector. This will help you keep "a balanced portfolio" as well as identify assets you may want to buy in bulk. Eventually it will include a recommendation engine based on your past investment history! (Bonus add-on: the astrological module, which will help you identify entrepreneurs who will be astrologically compatible with you! Okay, just kidding about that....sort of.... )

It's like having your own personal intelligence agency to help you make money. You know, sort of like how the CIA helps investors make money.

Heh.

Of course, the real revolution will be when the entrepreneurs say, "hey, why don't we roll our own ActoVC, and why don't we invest in companies that will share data with us, so that we can get a network effects type of thing going?" Obviously privacy is the big issue here, but I think it can be resolved, and it is something I am working towards.

Hope this is somewhat clear. If not, stay tuned anyway -- it'll get clearer as I continue to work on this site, and as I travel down the path of making this all real. Or just ask me, and I'll be happy to clarify.

And of course, if you have any ideas on a social news community that you want for your business, let me know. As I've said before, don't be intimidated by my kookiness, it is simply my spiritual obligation to be a kook (I'd argue that its yours as well, but I hate the word obligation, and don't impose it on anyone. It's up to you to come to that realization. You have to make the choice.)

But anyway, point is I'm a normal person -- ok, yes, I'm a kook instead of a sheeple, but in the end, we're all just normal people.