Four Click Freedom

If anyone out there is starting to be dismayed by Social Networks, you are probably not the only one.  First of all, you have to have a different network for everyone you know.  Some people you don’t want on your MySpace for sure, some people you call friends and want them on your Facebook, and still others you only want to have a professional network with them on LinkedIn.  And then all those other networking sites like Twitter and Friend Feed can really seem like a joke to most people unless they are really close to you.

So what is a social network looking for? A bridge between all of these.  Although many of these allow you to cross reference your contacts along all these networks, that is not what people are looking for.  People don’t want to be pigeon holed by their boss about what they did on the Fourth of July, and they don’t want there friends to be out of their loop because their professor wants to keep in touch in a marginally sensitive way.

So what can people do to stay connected to everyone.  That is a very tough question.  People have to be rewarded for being in touch with one another.  If I am connected to someone on the fringe, well that should benefit me right?  Shouldn’t I be able to invite every single person in my gmail contacts to join some network of mine, one without boundaries?

The answer is yes.  How?  Well believe it or not we all have a lot in common.  I think the most important thing we do is purchase items.  This requires most of our concentration and effort when designing who we are.  The second most important thing we do is design our resume and profile.  I say resume because that used to be the old way of telling someone who you are.  Now you can have online resumes that link to all your other profiles, and if you really believe in your blog that too.

So what platform can bring these two together.  I believe it is Clickboards.net.  First and most important, you once again create a basic profile and that is it.  Second you use your Clickcard.  Like some credit cards, your shopping history will be cataloged.  You can then be rewarded for sharing the same interests as those in your network.  So the more people in your network the more likely it is you will be rewarded for having a common interest.

This could be the movie you go see, the theater you see movies, the restaurants you visit, the happy hour bar you go to, the office supplies you buy, the advertising you buy, the websites you visit, the clothes you buy, the ingredients for food you cook at home.

The more you interlink yourself with your community the more you save.  Thus you are rewarded for anyone that is in your network.  There fore even connecting to those strangers brings you rewards.  But remember it is up to you to set your privacy and filters.  But the rewards are yours.

The truth of the matter is that most people aren’t carrying that many cards anymore.  In fact the idea of so many cards may be outdated within the next few years.  There are thoughts in the US for having a federal ID that you would carry around.  This card is so advanced you could load the information from all your cards, drivers license, credit cards, reward cards, passport, AAA, all onto one card.

Yes this is still a card, but what I am saying is that there may be no need for a Clickcard in the future.  All this could be stored on your car key or mobile phone.  So the card is actually becoming outdated.

The point here is that most of these universal cards, keys, and phones will have a display on them for management purposes and probably GPS location so you will never worry about losing them and probably automatic locking features.  The beauty here is that the Clickboards can be sent to these devices.

I’m not saying you will be harassed every time you walk by a McDonald’s for a cheeseburger.  Actually only things that you have already stored at your Clickboards.net profile will be sent to you.  So if you are out shopping and you are at the Galleria, you could get reminded that you acquired a $50 gift certificate at Banana Republic.  Well then, it is now worth my time to go look around there.

Oh and when you check out, you’ll just pass your pager sized key over the register to pay and save.

What else can you call it but a Clickboard.  It is what it is.  A Clickcard is what it is.  You don’t have to protect them you just have to use them.  I predict many people will create ‘Clickcards’ and ‘Clickboards’ to connect them to their own sites.  But that really defeats universiality.  There will be competition but there will be a winner.  If you use your card all the time and it doesn’t give you savings and discounts and promotions you will eventually use the one that works.  The one that works is the one that is going to be most intrinsic.  But all in all the terms are the only thing that will be completely universal.  Everyone will refer to whatever you are offering with these two terms.

So what you might ask after figuring out what a Clickboard is and what a Clickcard can do.  Where is the money?  You aren’t going to sell anymore Clickboards on Clickboards.net than anyone sells anywhere else.  So where is the money?  Yea advertisers will pay for the statistical information about which Clickboards were activated and general or specific user history, but how much money can that make?  Coupons don’t make that much money!

So here is where you tickle the fancy of the advertiser.  Take a magazine subscription.  That magazine has their name on it right.  Well it also has a bar code that was printed on it, and that bar code also comes with an address.  If this person told Clickboards.net that they were subscribing to this magazine, then all the ads in that magazine could be drawn from their profile.  Then an individualized magazine would be sent to them.  Not one with just a bar code but one with all the ads in it tailored just for them.

What does this mean for the magazine?  In the same place they used to sell one ad, now they sell five or ten.  Ad prices go down and revenue goes up.