[...] Raph’s Website » A clash of models on January 30th, 2007, at 8:53 pm: [...]

Now, you as the end user, care about being warm. That’s a verb-state. If I invent a method that involves say… heating oil instead of coal, which is 1/3 the cost and safer and cleaner to you the consumer, you don’t care that the noun-coal has changed to noun-oil. You care that the verb-heat is the same, but with a better value prop. On the other hand, if I say, “I can do something different with this coal. Same noun, different verb. I can use it, if ground up fine, to make some weirdo chemicals used to improve industrial solvents. Noun-coal, verb-dissolve-PCBs.” You, as the consumer of noun-coal/verb-heat don’t give a crap. As the owner of the coal you do, sure. But almost all economic change is driven by new ways to do old things; not new things to do with old things, except they be part of the former.

As part of that process, what you end up with are some “higher-order” value holdings that are less likely to change over time or flex with shifts in the economy, because they are (to wax metaphoric) related to the value infrastructure rather than simply commodities. Roads are higher on the chain than the things that drive on them, for example, because roads change less frequently. Cars need roads just as much as horses. And the 2007 model cars need the roads as much as the 1963 models. A printing press is more valuable than a collection of books that it prints that may have the same sale price because books can be out-of-date.

I would argue that these “infrastructure nouns” are more verb-y. I would argue that SL is more verb-y than WoW, too, because it allows for more action inside it. Right now, clearly, WoW is waaaaay more valuable than SL. It’s like a pile of gold or an oil well. Very nice noun. And, sure… there’s still lots of value to be had in nouns. I’m not arguing that.

But verbs are more interesting. I’d rather be a printing-press than a book, and if I had to be stuck on a deserted island with one 3D, immersive technology I think I’d choose SL over WoW. Even though I played WoW for (I estimate) 20x as much time as I’ve been in SL. Why? Because I could, given enough time on that desert island, build many WoW-y things in SL. Whereas the opposite is in no way true.

But you can usually take a noun out of the picture and replace it with something else.

Doesn’t it have to be replaced with another noun? In other words

If you can find a way to make the go without the oil… ba-da-bing.

The oil can go away but it’ll be replaced by by another noun – hydrogen or ethanol or whatever.

At any rate, the reason Andy’s comment struck me was something in the starting post…

Part of the reason is that the sorts of businesses that networks have built have all historically been built on limited infrastructure. The phone company was able to be a powerful company because laying line was hard. Cable companies carve up the landscape into areas where they have cable laid. But in a web world, lots of folks have infrastructure (my hosting provider notwithstanding, lately).

I’m not sure there’s a single ‘web world’, aren’t there multiple ‘web worlds’ predicated on different infrastructures? Lots of [arguably boring] places don’t have broadband. My In-Laws live in one. The ‘web world’ in rural Kansas isn’t the same one as in Toronto. Cable modem > 56k dialup.

Along similar lines, I’ve been reading really fascinating stuff about how cellular telephony is driving economic activity in third worldish places. For some things cellular > landline. But what about web worlds. Someone can access the web via cell phone but will either SL model be accessable and workable via cell phone? Will Project X from Areae?

I can’t fault Andy’s general argument but I have to think that nouns still matter and that all nouns aren’t the same.

Right. But if you got all kinds of nouns, all of a sudden the verbs, adjectives and stuff are much more valuable. Because the ability to move, leverage, think, experience, etc. becomes — comparatively — more important.

If I have to spend every waking moment in a quest for food, then your ability to entertain me with any kind of “content” (story, movie, sport, law, education, etc.) is meaningless. Because it will be negative value; it will be a distraction from the noun “food.” If I got none, I die.

If, however, it only takes me (relatively speaking) 15 minutes of my day to earn my daily bread, and a total of 8ish hours to earn enough money to then have 8ish hours to be entertained… and I then have a (relatively) lot of money to spend on a diminishingly important pile of stuff vs. an increasingly interesting pile of verbs… well, I’ve got my main “nouns” covered. Let’s dance, as I like to say.

Books are less interesting than not starving to death, but more interesting than just sitting there. Movies that talk are more interesting (in general) than those that don’t. Color is more interesting than B&W. A choice of 13 brands of toothpaste at 4 different stores within easy driving distance is more interesting (not necessarily more effective) than 1 brand that I drive an hour to get.

3D is more interesting than 2D. Why? Because it offers choices. Note I did not say “better” or, again, “more effective.” But “more interesting.” IE, “able to generate more verbs,” perhaps. Everything that can be done in 2D can be done in 3D, because “3″ encompasses “2.” Not that I want to run a Firefox client as my main browser in SL today…

Verb beats noun because verb implies noun + idea or motion. I ain’t saying nouns aren’t important. Stuff is good. I like my stuff. But you can usually take a noun out of the picture and replace it with something else. Whereas the verbs that we value stay pretty much the same, and when we find better ways to deliver them to customers… yowza. Wood is important, yes. Need wood to make paper. Why? Because we like to read. But is the wood as important as the read? Is the oil is important as the go? If you can find a way to make the go without the oil… ba-da-bing.

Value are found in the context and in the utility. It’s that whole “if a tree falls in the forest, will anyone hear it” meme.

Verbs, adverbs, and adjectives are all great. But if you got no noun, all that verbs, adverbs, and stuff doesn’t mean much.

As Raph said:

Content is still king, of course. The network still needs the shows. But it’s an omnivorous hunger. Almost any show will do, barring radical branding conflicts. Perhaps that’s why Viacom’s new Nickelodeon world; isn’t lumped in with the MTV ones — or for that matter, NeoPets.

In the end, both bits of news point towards the growth of virtual worlds as networks rather than as shows. It’s not a new trend, given past experiments like Station Pass and the like — but perhaps it’s inevitable, given that the worlds themselves sit on top of the most successful networked technology mankind has yet developed.

The old models of industrial age was monopoly, control, captives, etc.
The new models of information age is developing to be the Long Tail, Wisdom of the Crowds, Open Source, personalization, etc.

Some would say it’s about the “experience”, the “relationships”, and the “self-actualizations”.

Frank

[Yes, I know... we need it to make plastic, too. I'm making a point here... Give me a break...]

How many of those SL fanboyz as you call them are Linux users and Hackers full time in thier meatworld jobs?

I’m not downing that, I like both open source and proprietary software, I use Mozilla, and IE, I use Linux, OS X and XP, but I’m pragmatic about tool sets, I know some fellow coders who are like religious zelots and view OS v. Proprietary SW as tantamount to a war for the soul of humanity…SL happens to be the first VW that allows for that (in a big way), so combine a OS hacker and a rabid gamer/VW resident, and well your going to get a rabid hacker fanboi for SL. Its not Linear Algebra, just human nature.

Sub-cultures of people interested in the same thing tend to be xenophobic about the non-believer….

I won’t quibble about marginal utility [too many economists in the offices around me] but did feel like it was necessary to point out the reason the
‘adjectives’ and ‘verbs’ have higher relative value is because of the abundance of ‘nouns’. We’re not moving from a world that valued nouns to a world that values verbs; it’s better to say that we’re moving to a world that values nouns and verbs instead of just nouns.

The richest man is the king of 1′s and 0′s. But then again…

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/01/news/companies/exxonmobil/index.htm?cnn=yes

The fundamental fact that you’re missing our on is that whatever is digital can and will be copied. There is no technical measure that will gaurentee that something won’t be copied. This is just a fact of technology, and there’s no way around it.

Now there’s two options: the first is that you try and enforce non-copyability through the courts. This works, and it’s actually the method that people have relied on for a couple of centuries.

The other way is to decide not to bother, that the stakes are too small to justify the investment in lawyers. In this case, you have to adapt your business model so that it doesn’t rely on selling “property”, but instead on “events” as Prok says. Now “events” doesn’t have to mean one-off: an event can be a club that runs continually for years. What it means is leveraging things which are unique: the personality of the club owners, the one-off performance of a band, the things with give the “property” some context.

In the digital world, context is king – not content

How much was an idea worth back in feudal times vs. a handful of grain or coal or wood? Could you protect that idea? Until the early 20th century, you couldn’t legally protect a trademark… so how much was a picture (which is arguably not a “thing” but a “thing about a thing) that related to your stuff worth, if anyone could copy it without legal recourse?

Transportation is all about verbs. Getting my “stuff” — let’s say coal — out of the ground in Pennsylvania and to the power-plants in Ohio, NY, Illinois, etc. The people who moved the stuff made way more money than the landowners. And then the people who had the information about how well (adjectives) stuff moved from place to place made more money. Information is all adjectives; it is neither thing nor action, but knowing about them both.

So… if you offered me all your stuff, vs. all the information about how you got all your stuff and where you bought it, how you got it, what you paid, who you connected to with it, etc… I might, indeed, take the info. And if it was crappy stuff vs. good info… Or info about hundreds or thousands or millions of users of crappy stuff, and that info gave good insight into how I could sell them more crappy stuff…

And if you offered me some stuff vs. the experiences (the verbs) you enjoyed with the stuff, well… would you rather own the DVD of 1,000 movies or see the movies? Would you rather go on a lifetime of great vacations that involve renting cars and staying in hotels, or own a beat-up car and a house in the sticks? Would you rather learn (verb) skills (verbs) and charm (verb) so that you can be (verb) funny and suave (adjectives) and have (verb) a ton of hot friends, or own a bunch of tacky crap and be alone among a million shiny toys?

In the early 1900s, something like 90% of our GDP was spent on making food and 40% of all family household income was spent on food and clothes. Now we’re down to like 2% of the GDP going to food and 17% of family income on food/clothes. So… yeah, we still need to eat, and we still need farmers. But we don’t measure *wealth* in the same ways anymore.

The richest man in the world is the Lord of Zeros and Ones, eh?