[Comments are still borked. Apparently the system is receiving them, but not displaying. It's a problem with Typepad; nothing we can do directly. But I will open a new thread here to allow some commenting to continue.]
My closing thoughts: I hear what everyone is saying and I respect it. Sometimes I just have to get hit in the face with something before I see it. For example, last week my wife and I were invited by my chairman to a dinner, with another professor couple. We asked what we could bring. The chair's wife said "Nothing, just yourselves!" My wife asked me, "Well, what are we bringing?" I said "Nothing, of course. That's what she said isn't it?" My wife rolled her eyes. She got some little flowers. I rolled my eyes. We get there and the other wife had brought big flowers. My wife, whose suffering of my ways has been long and not always patient, glared at me. OK, OK, OK, finally, I get it: "Nothing" means "Flowers."
I do think the world is a better place with such things and so I respect what this community is saying about the Serio. You've convinced me; I made a mistake. Therefore I will not ignore emails that have no Serios attached. I will try to read everything I get. This is nice anyways because it also allows me to go back to Thunderbird, which I prefer to Outlook.
However, I still like the virtual game aspect of the Serio. So if someone gets an Attent account and sends me some Serios - which you can do without Outlook - I will perk up and notice, if only because the sender seems to share my interest in virtual currency. Heck if you want Serios, just go get an account, email me a request, and I will send you some.
Serios remain on my radar. If you are someone I don't know and you really, really, really want to dialog, do the Serio thing and I promise to get to your message quickly.
Thanks everyone for your comments and if I offended, I apologize.
Ted,
Appology accepted. I will resume sending you emails, but only as needed - as always. :-)
Best of luck with your Serios - please be sure to write up your lessons learned and share them with us!
Randy
Posted by: F. Randall Farmer | Jan 14, 2009 at 20:28
I tried a very similar experiment not too long ago.
There was this game called "World of Warcraft" and I created a currency called "dollars" which could be used to evaluate the relative value of each piece of loot or gold that dropped in the game. Then I used this system called "Ebay" to post the values (and even let marketplace forced determine the relative value of the goods) and allow people to make choices about which kinds of loot were important to them.
I remember someone complaining that this ruined the game and that it was a pretty serious matter.
I can't for the life of me remember who though . . .
Posted by: Xantippi | Jan 14, 2009 at 21:42
I described Serios to my wife last night. She was unimpressed. After a bit of discussion, we decided we'd much prefer a virtual currency from a company called Ridiculosity; Ridiculos.
The idea being that you attach on include something absolutely Ridiculos to an email in order to add spice, shake things up, etc.
My first Ridiculos to her had the subject line:
"Lobster comb."
That is all.
Posted by: Andy Havens | Jan 14, 2009 at 23:22
Due to scarcity of spectra, broadcast television has been the subject of extensive regulation. The Internet is generally not regulated and now as a result, there is a scarcity of attention. Are serios a market based form of regulation to deal with this new scarcity?
Posted by: Peter S. Jenkins | Jan 15, 2009 at 01:10
Due to scarcity of spectra, broadcast television has been the subject of extensive regulation. The Internet is generally not regulated and now as a result, there is a scarcity of attention. Are serios a market based form of regulation to deal with this new scarcity?
Posted by: Peter S. Jenkins | Jan 15, 2009 at 01:10
Just as well that post wasn't an email, Peter, or it would have cost you twice as many Serios.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jan 15, 2009 at 03:16
@ Richard - hehe yes and like errors on credit card statements, it would take months to get a refund
Peter
Posted by: Peter S. Jenkins | Jan 15, 2009 at 08:22
Please, don't e-mail me. I'll pay you if you want. I have a lot of Serios ;)
Posted by: altug isigan | Jan 15, 2009 at 16:20
Друг дал на вас ссылочку. Благодарна. Стану постоянным читателем или читательницей :)
Posted by: Heareemaiccar | Jan 20, 2009 at 12:38
Long delayed response...
It occurred to me that I may have been unclear on exactly how the Serio works, and that this unclarity relates to the reaction you received.
Here's the point on which I'm not clear: When I attach 10 Serios to a message, does (a) the receiver actually receive those 10 Serios into their own account to spend later? Or, (b) do those 10 Serios get "sunk" back to Seriosity and the receiver simply sees that 10 Serios were spent?
I think most of the reaction was assuming that the system worked like (a), thereby "http://forge.ironrealms.com/2009/01/09/seriosity-what-the-hell/>I don’t pay people I have relationships with to talk to me." That's very different from paying a third party to wrap a message with a virtual shiny bow, as (b) implies.
Reading over the Seriosity material, this fuzziness remains. I'm not sure if (b) would change people's attitudes or not, but I'd be interested to have it clarified.
Posted by: Timothy Dang | Jan 30, 2009 at 14:10
"(b) do those 10 Serios get "sunk" back to Seriosity and the receiver simply sees that 10 Serios were spent?"
No, it doesn't change a thing for me. All the social meanings that come with paying for my attention are still there. Also, serios will cause a new status-position to emerge: To be the one who writes emails that get read with no serios attached! We know having a hot line to power trumphs quantifiable resources at any time. Having played golf together is more important than putting the letter in a pretty, shiny and expensive envelope.
Sorry, but all I can see is just another way to play power-games and exploit your position, while excluding those low on resources.
Posted by: Torill | Feb 09, 2009 at 08:58
I do have to appreciate the Freakonomics aspect of the idea. Platform lock-in issues and Austrian versus Monetarist debates aside, there is something to the notion of finding a valid store of value to represent the true scarce resource implied: the recipient's time.
I don't think you were wrong. There is something to this. The devil is in the details of practical implementation, not the lofty philosophy of the thing. (I say, as I write on my MacBook Pro running Parallels because true Outlook ((not Entourage)) is a requirement of my reality.)
Posted by: randolfe_ | Feb 10, 2009 at 19:58