Brica What? The Vision Behind VentBox™, BricaBox™, and Social Knitting
You may be surprise to hear us say this, but VentBox™ isn't at all about venting -- it's about BricaBox™ and the Social Knitting of people and information that's going on around us. "Brica What?!" you ask. "Social Knitting?"
"What's happening now" with the Internet, or as others like to say, "Web 2.0": We see that the shining light of Web 2.0 seems find its brightest points in an interesting duality: the power of the individual expression and the power of the coming together to relate around that expression. This duality is experienced with the blogger who rises to prominence after being "Digged" and it's experienced when Ask a Jew uploads his movie and thousands of people watch it on YouTube and distribute it further. We all extract value from this process when we find an article we like or see that our tastes in home videos are the same as thousands of others.
But, in a way, there's something awry with this duality: This model separates the social aspects of the Internet from the production aspect, and creates what's actually a lop-sided, non-organic relationship among information and people. And while the duality doesn't go against recent truths such as "The Long Tail," "The World is Flat," and "You Have the Power", it doesn't allow us to claim that most people aren't still "small fish" out there. In Web 2.0, we're learning that networks still dominate people; Digg can be gamed; LonelyGirl15 is a professional actress and funded; and that MoveOn's agenda is still decided on by a small group of people, despite it being social media.
And so we were inspired to build BricaBox™. BricaBox -- the platform behind VentBox -- is a platform that recognizes that information production and the social activity around digital goods has to be better fused together. We say that when you produce content it's good to see what other people have produced which is similar AS you're producing it. This gives you choice to join forces with others, and then allows you to continue expressing yourself. The platform asks you to share certain types of information at certain times in order to optimize the possibility of "coming together", but it never restricts how much you share or deviate from what others have said.
Essentially, the vision for BricaBox™ is to be a platform that optimizes the movement of information to the 'Net, the organic organization, promotion and distribution around that information; it's making this optimization powered by the people whom are interacting with the site and its cache of information and human capital. It's trying to get information and people to grow, ebb and flow together.
Social Knitting We think this dynamic between and among people and information can best be described as "Social Knitting," and we think there's a lot of potential for the Internet if we recognize this and continue to work on a product that honors this vision which has been wrought from an important intersection of trends and forces making the Web what it is, and taking the Web where it's going.
Indeed, we also see Social Knitting happening in other places on the Web, and we've been duly informed by their progress in this area:
43things.com is an incredible phenomenon and resource, though it has its own weaknesses. LibraryThing is a great example of how Information and People organically co-exist and build off each other. Upcoming.org and Last.fm reveal how dynamic this information can be when the production of information and coming together around that information are seamless.
-- So, take VentBox for what it's worth now, but understand where it's going and why. This is our vision, and we're excited to bring it to you.