AddressableThings

In 2021 a whole economy

If you read the previous version of this page, it probably all seemed a bit of a quirky side issue, but suddenly NonFungibleTokens have made this the basis of a real economy with a lot of money.

Effectively the ArtificialScarcity of unique IDs guaranteed on BlockChain is what economies are made of IdentityIsTheNewMoney

(MetaVerse, WebThreePointZero, OpenMetaVerse)

Previously

(ReadWith) : Spimes, DataShadows

Been thinking and discussing a bit about the way new platforms are created on the internet. One kind of platform or ecological / economic niche is to identify an addressable thing, and attach other stuff to it.

My friend Berkan is trying to find a general theory of this. I think the index must be something we know about, and the attached information must have some reason to care even if it's trivial.

Does this make any kind of sense? Here are a couple of examples to show what I'm getting at :

There used to be a whole slew of sites to use BarCodes and addressing so you could see who caught a lobster you were eating, or where timber or eggs or other products came from. Sadly many of these sites have long gone.

But the principle is still sound. SupplyChains track these things. Why are they not open for customers to inspect?

This should still be a demand from WiredTradeUnions

Again, BlockChains are plausibly going to bring us a lot more of this via NonFungibleTokes

What other things might be platforms in this way?

• combinations of clothes?

• RGB / HSI definitions of colours?

: Interesting example of the latter in the RemKoolhaas edited Wired (June 2003). It plots the logos of various corporates on a colour space graph, showing how many cluster around certain desirable colours, mainly blue with a couple of minor clusters around red and violet.

: Online at but http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/color_spc.html but this isn't very useful without the picture that accompanies the magazine version!

DavidWeinberger, The year of unique IDs : http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-dec05-05.html#id

TomCoates, The age of pointing at things : http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/04/theageof_pointatthings.shtml

Platforms in this sense are repeatable things. (Compare ChristopherAlexander on patterns, Derrida on iteration, Dawkins on genes, Strawson on Re-identification, me on IndividualRecognition, and PrintingAndUniformity)

Mozes? : http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/04/20/mozes-secure-your-keyword/

Cardboard hitchhikers : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/04/hitch_sv/

Targetting job-seekers with ads for other things. The job becomes the addressable thing : http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2006/05/advertising_to.html

See also :

• EconomiesInVirtualPlaces / OnPlatforms
• ClayShirky discussing addressable resources at the edge of the network in PeerToPeer

• CirculatingObjectLink
• HyperMusic

• MicroContent could be thought of as the idea that we can address content at a finer granularity (OnGranularity)

• OwnTheNamespace
• GiveMeaningToPlace

CategoryInformationalism