Is it still all about the Benjamins? What's the new currency?

This month's TalTech meeting was much more thought-provoking than I had anticipated. I had come expecting useful information, which was definitely delivered, but I came away with a bit more. The Powerpoint file, by the way, has been posted to the site now. Find it by checking out our new Events Calendar via our menu bar's Events link.

Dr. Molly Wasko of FSU's College of Business MIS program presented an extremely interesting overview of their online program, with some very compelling support for the quality of the online degree experience. FSU's program is of a particular quality, considering that they are one of the few accredited programs available, and are certainly one of the best deals I've seen. I think that many professionals in the IT industry would be well-served to return to the academic world via the online program, especially considering today's job market.

What came on the tail end of Dr. Wasko's presentation, however, got me thinking about the direction of online commerce. Molly spent some time explaining the phenomenon of our children's integration into Internet technology: how they basically consider it a utility like electricity, take it for granted, and as a result have less interest in IT as a career pursuit. She then showed us some examples of how companies have attempted to tap into the network-effects of mass Internet use, such as the children's toy-site Webkinz (which my 6 year-old daughter spends a great deal of time using) and Dell's customer-driven innovation web site IdeaStorm.

What got the wheels turning for me, however, was a question posed by member Pam Butler of Aegis Computer Services, in which she asked about how a company might actually be expected to earn some real revenues from these web ventures. Molly made reference to the iTunes/iPhone stores, in which the combination of very low pricing (typically 99 cents for a song or an iPhone app) and a massive customer base provides some respectable returns. I began to wonder: could the reduction of price to practically nothing be a tip-off that our current way of paying for things is losing relevance? When you're paying pennies for a product, the purchasing decision is removed from the financial realm. It now becomes a decision based on whether it's worth your time to bother with it. They are giving us value in exchange for time.

The old equation that drove our economies could have been represented like this: your time (results in) you getting paid (results in) you buying something of value, or for the mathematically minded: time = money = value

So, could it be that the Internet, a notorious time-drain for many, has succeeded in converting time itself into a currency? That's what attention is, after all: our time. In many of these situation, it's not just passive time, it's our active, productive input. Perhaps, in the same way the old SETI@Home application takes advantage of spare computer cycles on a desktop, the next wave of successful web ventures will be those who can actually factor out the financial part of the equation and get you to directly trade your time for value. time = value

Then, again, maybe the next currency will be something completely different. I wonder who'll be running the bank?