Earthgrid. One of the Internet's First b2b Social Networks.
others have called us 'Your Own Private Island on the Web'
The vision behind Earthgrid was that of a connected culture using the Internet to exchange and collaborate on ideas that benefit the planet. That idea still holds true today.
In 1996, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii while rowing in a two-man canoe up a river to a waterfall, we conceived of this idea to speed up communication using databases instead of flat files. Since the whole world was on dial-up modems, it had to be fast and ultra efficient. Besides...we'd rather surf and lie out at the beach than sit in the office waiting for the e-mail-attachments to come thru....sometimes it took hours. It seemed like the important messages were at the END of all the junk mail and attachments. We had a conceived of a better way to rapidly communicate, and it worked! We could check our messages in a few seconds!
That involved into bringing others into our 'grid' as we called it. We were really the first b2b internet social network. Sharing, photos, music and stories which much of the modern social networks do today wasn't and still isn't our priority. Since most of our members are 'early adopters' of technology, some garage startups and even a few billionaires, privacy and freedom of self expression were and still are some of our core values..."
One of the most fun things we did a few years back was to be the platform for a 'reality TV show' that was in pre-production. It was an entrepreuring show called 'Millionaire 101' where 1 mentor took 12 people and paired them up into two-person teams. Each team would decide on a project that could produce a million dollars in 101 days in revenue. The mentor was already a multi-millionaire real estate investor. The producers thought this would be a great idea for a show, right around the time that the Apprentice was starting up.
I thought this would be a great platform for Earthgrid to test out the business functionality of itself as a social network. Using the tools, we assembled the 'grid'. A 'grid' is a nested group of connections that are dynamically generated by members of the 'grid'. Each 'grid' has a 'gridmaster' who is in charge of the grid and moderates the interaction of the members.
Each 'grid' has a finite number of connections, not an infinite one. That is one of the key distinctions of Earthgrid apart from the other myriad of social networks. Also each person in the 'grid' can only have 1 interaction 'active' at one time. We found this to be the most powerful 'after effect' because it forced people to become clear.
When we moved to mobile-text messaging, this made even more sense, since 'back in the day' you could only send 160 characters on a text message. Even though the limit has been raised, if you can tell your message in 160 characters you're a winner.
Another great example of how we used Earthgrid was in the talent agency. As we sought to find commercial application for our general set of 'earthgrid tools' - one of our clients was a casting agency in Hollywood. They came to us with a distinct problem: it was consting them too much to 'reach' their actors in the field, many of whom didn't like to answer their telephones (they're actors after all). Since at the time we were known as a leader in the mobile-text messaging space in LA, our agent in LA made the introduction. We set up a 'grid' for their actors, so their actors could be reached by the agency in groups, saving the client time and money in reaching his actors.
There are literally thousands of applications for the Earthgrid tools. Many of our members have started-up companies with other members, others have found connections or kept connections for years.
Fast forward to 2009. My thought today, is how can I help bring our existing members back together with the new members to grow the network?
I just attended an interesting conference about Social Networking sponsored by the Web Guild. In this conference the question was raised about how social networks when they grow too large in size and scope start to lose their charm.
I thought to myself, we haven't lost our charm after 13 years actively running! Someone suggested the same and said, "maybe you invented Earthgrid before its time, before there really was a need for it. There's a need for it now. Its kind of like when the beach is too crowded in the Summer, people start to seek out places that arent' so crowded."
That sparked an idea in me that had be purkalating (is that how you spell it???), for a while. How could we allow members to retain their anonymity but still have intelligent conversations with each other? Also what is the best way for members to meet each other and exchange ideas?
I don't know. Maybe you do? Please write about it in a reply to this article!
We need User Interface design support. You see the whole platform is written in a simple META-TAG language we called GDML (grid markup language). It can 'look' and 'function' like anything. Those of us who coded Earthgrid aren't UI designers. Because of this we generalized the toolkit so much that it was actually 'UI FREE' and hence simple META-TAGS could be used to build any kind of UI to the system.
If you are a UI designer willing to help the 'community' project call us immediately at 415-691-4141 or skype me at 'earthgrid' . Many clients need UI design. The easiest way to attract those clients is to demonstrate what you can do for the community at-large by showing off your skills.
see earthgrid.net/community
for our community project.
Another thought I had was to produce a series of Webinars sharing web optimization principles I've learned over the years. I asked a colleageue of mine if he would be willing to help moderate some webinars with some of our members. This way our members could meet each other. The only thing we ask is that when people speak that they share their username, not their e-mail address or other personal information.
The username links into your mobile phone and your e-mail address so that if you change either your phone # or your e-mail you can still stay in touch with Earthgrid members you're connected to.
We dont' share photos, links or clutter. You only share your name. When people click on your name they can contact you. You get a small teeny space to write in to get your point across...don't waste people's time!
'Hi. Great meeting you at the Social Networking event and talked about this all girls-group for a possible ad for you company. check them out their username is HRH and their site is earthgrid.com/hrh ' - is sufficient.
Just a little note is all you need to stay in touch. THe shorter the message the more likely someone will respond to you if they can remember you. Oh and you can always look up their profile to see who that person is.
Thats why for years we've been saying.
Earthgrid....Simplify
Your comments are greatly appreciated.
Viktor Grant, Founder
Earthgrid
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