First of all, the pyramid structure is present in all types of social phenomena, from markets to government, to our debt-based fiat monetary system. Even viral marketing, the holy grail of web marketing, benefits from a pyramid structure.

Confusing the pyramid structure with a “pyramid scheme” is just sloppy thinking. What, in fact, makes a pyramid structure a “scheme” is not the structure of the model but whether or not it’s sustainable at certain input/output ratios.

To understand this requires study; it is not self-evident simply by associating a phrase with popular usage, e.g. “the Berni Madoff pyramid scheme,” et al.

In theory, the idea behind Yuwie.com is a fine one. You may better understand it by way of analogy:

Say you’re hanging out at a shopping mall with your friends; a shopping mall of the future—for those of you that have seen Minority Report, this analogy may seem an intermediate one. At this futuristic shopping mall, you’re not shopping per se as much as you’re hanging out, which the mall openly encourages by having awesome lounges, photo booths, games etc. all serving to augment the social experience.

But there’s a caveat: At the entrance to the mall, a sign posted in fine print states that by entering and using the facilities, you acknowledge that all conversations will be recorded, and hereby authorize disclosure of said conversations to third parties. You don’t read the sign, because you don’t really care; all your friends are inside and you just want to hang out.

Inside the mall, it is barely perceptible to you that the stores and sales notices are actually changing position as you talk with your friends; the products and services begin to “speak to you” silently, until it seems that they’re mimicking your conversation, a part of it, that they too are becoming, your friends.

Behind the scenes, unbeknownst to you, business relationships are forming and money is exchanging hands based on the fluid “conversation economy” that your discussions facilitate.

You see, a savvy technology company has developed a way to isolate, organize, and tag all conversations to the profiles of the participants, it then sells this information to the vendors in this futuristic shopping mall, thusly giving the vendors an edge in “pitching” products you are most likely to buy.

In effect, this technology company is a middleman between you and a seller, a birdie on your shoulder, reading your thoughts and ready to sing (tweet, tweet!), an unofficial agent of sorts, reporting to prospective dealmakers what your demands are likely to be at any given moment. But this agents takes more than a cut, it takes the whole cake.

You see, at its core, advertising is nothing more than a seller paying a commission to whatever entity has access to your senses.

Now ask yourself a simple question: What if sellers had to pay YOU for access to YOUR OWN senses? After all, you’re the one getting pitched. This is a simple, “pay to play” proposition, one that may, over time, increase the right kind of competition and creating a true buyers market.

As with all ideas, the ideal or theoretical concept can manifest quite differently when introduced to the imperfect science of human nature.

A problem with paying users of a social network for their networking is that they will turn the focus of their interactions from aimless socializing to bumbling attempts at running their own ad campaigns. Greed may be good, but in the hands of a fiendish rookie, it can be a total mess. And from what I understand, that’s what Yuwie.com looked like, an unadulterated mess.

The thing with professional marketers is that they are, for the most part, professionals; through trial & error they’re moving toward seamless, undetectable persuasion, which should result in a more elegant menu than allowing consumers write their own orders. At least that’s the paradigm we, facebook, and the rest of industry is living in.

I suppose that’s why we need “genius” like that behind facebook, to organize the lemming consumer impulses, whims and fancies into a coherent economy, because by ourselves we are just a greedy, needy mass, incapable of qualifying our own desires.

This topic is broad and deep and in need of some serious, thoughtful discussion, most of which the headline/opinion whores of the web aren’t capable or interested in demonstrating–on both the writer and reader side

Of course I can’t do the topic justice on such a limited forum, but rather than let this sweet little piece, Rebecca Kelly slide, I thought I’d tear up that ass a little

Forgive me, father, for I have grinned.

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