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I was at the Web 2.0 emerging industries series of panel talk organised by Startup@Singapore. Overall, the talk was interesting for beginners. For me, I found input from Vanessa Tan and Kevin Lim to be of more interest. To cut the chase short, I was very intrigued by the input from Kevin Lim.

As of any Web 2.0 talk will go, people will talk about money. I do not fault them as I am a firm believer that money drives the internet. Kevin did measure that as an individual, there are more than money at stake when it comes to Web 2.0. He suggested that we should consider more than a single “currency” while online.

There are the currencies of

  • Reputation
  • Social Good-will
  • Social Well Being
  • Social Need
  • Pay If Forward

In his opinion, monetization is a “dirty” word. Not all might agree, but I do see an element of truth in what he said. He cited the example of Kiva.org, a micro loan site that engages users in the developed countries to make micro loans to poor African start-ups (those brick and mortar ones, mostly in trade and farming) so these business can get a head start. Improving the business climate of such countries will in turn improve the quality of life of such countries. Kiva make for a interesting read, and inspiring read also.

Kevin added the concept of Ithaca hour. What it does is that the currency of trade is measured in hours, or time, instead of money. For example:

A doctor attend to a sick child and spend an hour on the task. For his work, he is credited an hour currency. And when the need arise, he requires a plumber to fix his pipes at home and the plumber took an hour for the job and he will be credited with an hour currency. This hour currency is in turn passed around as and when the service provider gives or receives services and products.

In the above example, if the currency is in cash, the doctor may be paid $50 while the plumber $30. Hence there is a disparity in the currency exchanged. Not that there is anything wrong with it in a capitalist society driven by “free” market forces.

Now I extend the scenario by saying that the doctor is not local. He will take the extra $20 and maybe send it home or spend it elsewhere outside of the local economy. Such an act will result in a nett loss for the local economy.

The advantage of time-based currency like Ithaca hours is that it promotes local economical development as the currency hours earned have to be spend on local services and products. I may had simplified the concept, the pros and cons of it, but it make for an interesting discussion with like minded people.

Last but not least, the social currency of reputation, needs, good-will and pay it forward are important concepts that drives few of the most important sites on the web. Think Wikipedia, flickr and Kiva. Also I have to mention the open source movement. Without which, I cannot be running my system on the wonderful Ubuntu, and this post cannot be made on the user friendly (slightly bloated) Wordpress blogging engine.