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"The phenomenon of consumer co-creation is often framed in terms of whether either economic market forces or socio-cultural non-market forces ultimately dominate. We propose an alternate model of consumer co-creation in terms of co-evolution between markets and non-markets. Our model is based on a recent ethnographic study of a massively multiplayer online game through its development, release and ultimate failure, and is cast in terms of two explanatory models: multiple games and social network markets. We conclude that consumer co-creation is indeed complex, but in ways that relate to both emergent market expectations and the evolution of markets, not to the transcendence of markets. "

Out there on the internet is a place where you can buy and sell anything anonymously using untraceable money. What is mostly being bought and sold in this stealth market right now are recreational drugs -- pot and acid, etc. There has always been black markets in every city of the world, but as underground and out of sight as they might be, you still needed to show up in person to trade. And there has long been outlaw areas of the internet where black markets thrive and you don't need to reveal yourself, but paying without any trace has been a problem. This new online stealthy anonymart, called Silk Road, solves these problems with two existing technologies. Silk Road uses established anonymizing Tor network to trade anonymously, and it employs the new Bitcoin peer-to-peer encrypted payment system to provide untraceable payments, which can in theory be converted to dollars or other national currencies.

…retail commercial activity within resilient communities will be growing and in some cases exceeding the activity seen before the depression. The reason?  The effort these communities made in building locally viable open markets that promoted the wares of local producers.  

Iceland's Crowdsourced Constitution - A Lesson in Open Source Marketing

"When asked by his interviewer about the "modest title" of his new book, The Future - Six Drivers of Global Change, former Vice President Al Gore replied, "Random House came up with that title." It's not an auspicious beginning to a talk about the perils of the Global Megacrisis, when you more or less say your title was chosen because the marketing team liked it best. Nevertheless, when Al Gore speaks, people listen. And hundreds of people lined up last week for his live South By Southwest (SXSW) interview with Wall Street Journal and All Things D tech reporter Walt Mossberg. It was to a sympathetic crowd that Gore laid out the tenets of his newest book, which was born in 2005 as an off-the-cuff but "adequate" answer during a post-appearance Q&A session. "

"The sewing machine was the smartphone of the nineteenth century. Just skim through the promotional materials of the leading sewing-machine manufacturers of that distant era and you will notice the many similarities with our own lofty, dizzy discourse. The catalog from Willcox & Gibbs, the Apple of its day, in 1864, includes glowing testimonials from a number of reverends thrilled by the civilizing powers of the new machine. One calls it a "Christian institution"; another celebrates its usefulness in his missionary efforts in Syria; a third, after praising it as an "honest machine," expresses his hope that "every man and woman who owns one will take pattern from it, in principle and duty." The brochure from Singer in 1880-modestly titled "Genius Rewarded: or, the Story of the Sewing Machine"-takes such rhetoric even further, presenting the sewing machine as the ultimate platform for spreading American culture. The machine's appeal is universal and its impact is revolutionary. Even its marketing is pure poetry:"

"Clients are provided with tailored advice and practical tools for starting, scaling or sustaining their initiatives. Consultancies can cover areas such as creative brain storming, 'asset-mapping' and brand clarification, through to exploration of appropriate legal and business structures - including social enterprise - and how to creatively market and fundraise on a shoestring budget. Where relevant, clients are steered towards free tools, sent customisable documents and introduced to relevant individuals within the consultant's network."

"Australia's Federal Government announced the National Broadband Network (NBN) in 2009. NBN's current roll-out is scheduled for completion in 2021, with market forecasts estimating optical fibre overtaking DSL broadband connections in about 2015. This paper provides a timely contribution to more critical and expansive analysis of potential Australian internet futures. First, 'schools of thought' and current technological frames (Web 2.0, 'the cloud') for the internet and its possible futures are outlined, which provide perspectives on the emergence of the NBN. We then outline five generic images of the future which, as predetermined images, enable quick 'incasting' of alternative futures for a technology topic or related object of research: promised future, social/speculative bubble(s), unfolding disruption/chaos, unintended consequences, and co-existence/'cooption'. High-level application of the 'schools' and generic images to the NBN and Australia's potential internet futures, suggests policymakers and strategists currently consider too few perspectives."

" Consider the disruption that technology has already introduced. The big data company BeyondCore can automatically evaluate vast amounts of data, identify statistically relevant insights, and present them through an animated briefing, rendering the junior analyst role obsolete. And the marketing intelligence company Motista employs predictive models and software to deliver insights into customer emotion and motivation at a small fraction of the price of a top consulting firm. These start-ups, though they lack the brand and reputation of the incumbents, are already making inroads with Fortune 500 companies-and as partners to the incumbents. "

An open market for services - price fixed at $5.

An open market for services - price fixed at $5.

"As Surowiecki explained, certain conditions must be met for crowd wisdom to emerge. Members of the crowd ought to have a variety of opinions, and to arrive at those opinions independently. Take those away, and crowd intelligence fails, as evidenced in some market bubbles. Computer modeling of crowd behavior also hints at dynamics underlying crowd breakdowns, with he balance between information flow and diverse opinions becoming skewed." I thought this might have implications both for Delphi methods in general and for our crowd work specifically.

"Global Foresight Associates is a futures research and consulting firm that offers ideas and insights about the future to help our clients determine the strategic implications of change for their business and industry. Our uninhibited thinking offers a unique perspective - a big picture view of the future that explores the current trends and emerging issues reverberating throughout society and business. This view from the "outside in" helps clients innovate existing products, identify new areas and markets for growth and explore the possible, probable and preferable futures for their business."

"Maarten Lens-FitzGerald got in touch recently to let us know that someone had created a layer within the Layar augmented reality platform that geo-tags a film shown by Rick Prelinger at his annual Lost Landscapes of San Francisco event."

Projections of the size of the personal robot market in 2015 and 2020.

Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they'd bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you'd hear anything like that was when the amplified "chugga, chugga, chugga" of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.

Facing declining visitors and uncertainty about what to do about it, library administrators in the new town of Almere in the Netherlands did something extraordinary. They redesigned their libraries based on the changing needs and desires of library users and, in 2010, opened the Nieuwe Bibliotheek (New Library), a thriving community hub that looks more like a bookstore than a library. Guided by patron surveys, administrators tossed out traditional methods of library organization, turning to retail design and merchandising for inspiration. They now group books by areas of interest, combining fiction and nonfiction; they display books face-out to catch the eye of browsers; and they train staff members in marketing and customer service techniques. The library is also a Seats2meet (S2M) location where patrons are empowered to help one another in exchange for free, permanent, coworking space, and they utilize the S2M Serendipity Machine to connect library users in real-time. They also have a bustling cafe, an extensive events and music program, a gaming facility, a reading garden and more. The result? The New Library surpassed all expectation about usage with over 100,000 visitors in the first two months. It is now considered one of the most innovative libraries in the world.

"Together, they highlight five "technologies that matter" for cities in 2020: mobile broadband; smart personal devices, whether they're dirt-cheap phones or tablets; government-sponsored cloud computing (modeled on the U.K.'s national "G-cloud" initiative); open-source public databases to promote grassroots innovation, and "public interfaces." Instead of Internet cafés, imagine an outdoor LED screen and hacked Kinect box allowing literally anyone to access the Net using only gestures."

This diffuse, fractured world will be run more by cities and city-states than countries. Once, Venice and Bruges formed an axis that spurred commercial expansion across Eurasia. Today, just 40 city-regions account for two thirds of the world economy and 90 percent of its innovation. The mighty Hanseatic League, a constellation of well-armed North and Baltic Sea trading hubs in the late Middle Ages, will be reborn as cities such as Hamburg and Dubai form commercial alliances and operate "free zones" across Africa like the ones Dubai Ports World is building. Add in sovereign wealth funds and private military contractors, and you have the agile geopolitical units of a neomedieval world. Even during this global financial crisis, multinational corporations heavily populate the list of the world's largest economic entities; the commercial diplomacy of emerging-market firms such as China's Haier and Mexico's Cemex has already turned North-South relations inside out faster than the nonaligned movement ever did.