Recently, @twinports, a candidate for the Knight News Challenge Grant twittered: @Xarker how do you think we compare to Comradity?
I’d say we are very complementary, but different.
A key strategy we share is not trying to organize everyone and everything in the whole universe. We are both starting with the premise it is much more effective to think in terms of organizing everyone and everything pertaining to a context.
Additionally, we are consistent in thinking that the most productive context is one that already exists in the “real world”. In your case, you are focusing on a real community – The Twin Ports region of Northeast Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin. In our case, the first application of the Comradity Community Network Platform is music makers who aspire to learn and discover and the communities who already serve them.
You propose a Community Operating System (great term):(1) a community-based cooperative, where contributors (e.g. writers, designers, web developers, journalists, and other citizens) are member-owners and are paid in proportion to the actual revenue generated from their contributions to the overall endeavor; and (2) the software technology to support and magnify their coordinated efforts. Collectively we refer to these as our Community Operating System.
- You are starting with a mission to serve people who currently or aspire to make money contributing information.
- The membership is a community of information contributors. For example, the Comradity music maker network could be an information contributor, providing in-depth information about what music makers of all levels are doing in your region – a level of coverage you probably wouldn’t initiate in–house.
- Your success is contingent upon generating more revenue for the contributors than they make now.
The Comradity Community Network Platform is designed to enrich participation with two strategies: a) integrate best-in-class technologies with a proprietary connective system, b)that emulates the factors affecting camaraderie and community in the "real world".
- We start with the mission to enrich participation through real time access to highly desirable information and interactivity with others who share common interests (for example, people who make music, primarily for their own intellectual and emotional enjoyment). Secondarily, we intend to make it more efficient for ALL those who seek to make money by contributing to the mission of enriching participation.
- The membership is much broader than information contributors: individuals who seek to participate to learn and discover and ALL those who can enrich participation, media, organizations, vendors, stores/schools, local talent. For example, Twin Ports Co-op & local radio stations may contribute by being the co-promoters of a regional battle of the bands.
- Our success is contingent upon enriching participation, more time and cost effectively, than anyone can do it on their own.
I think we need both. There is a need to structure an operating system that serves information contributors by aligning contributor reward to the revenues they generate and optimizing performance. There is also a need for a new link in the information value chain that generates more revenue to share. Our focus on enriching participation for intellectual and emotional benefit has a potential to grow demand for more quality information from contributors.
