WikiNomicsOnTrailfire
This is an OpenLetter to the founders of Trailfire.com with notification to the
- CEO of Aboutus.org: G RaymondKing
- CTO of Aboutus.org: G WardCunningham
Dear John O'Halloran, CEO
Dear Pat Ferrel, CTO
your excellent SocialSoftware, which I use and recommend in different wikis, since years, the friendly community spirit here and on your site and beyond that: several other factors encourage me, to write this public letter.
Other factors:
- the rise of G WikiNomics, G OpenBusiness and the fledgeling G ExtremeOpenBusiness
- the successful wiki project of Aboutus to make an editable catalog of all Websites, establishing friendly synergies by and with friendly connectors.
- the literature of e.g.
- Grown up Digital by Tapscott, the author of the bestseller Wikinomics How mass collaboration changes everthing and
- Web+2.0+a+strategy+guide by Amy Shuen, who stresses the importance of fostering Web communities and how this is done. E.g. He puts the focus on communities like Facebook with: ".. Facebook is promising economic freedom - third party applications can run adds and sell goods and services to their hearts' content .."
- A world without poverty by Mohammad Yunus, successful founder of the G GrameenFoundation.org, "Bank of the Poor", which earned him the nobel prize. In his book he advocates, that kids should learn how to become entrepreneurs.
- and many others
- the 200 million kids of the G OLPC.org project who will get the resources to catch up with digital standards, and for which we are preparing a G PennyBank.biz
- the study of your investor links from Trailfire:About ->
- Combining our Meatball: ConceptMaps initiative with FireTrail: (especially its wiki-mode). Since there are thousands of isolated Html-representations of Cmaps in the Web, Trailfire is ideally suited to connect and annotate them. The built-in annotation feature works only in edit-mode of the free Cmap Tool client together with some free Cmap Tool server. The author works intensively in helping to build and connect the
Cmappers.net community with Aboutus, Trailfire and Diigo.com. See his many contributions to bootstrap Ihmc:Cmapforum, starting collaboration with the wellknown American mathematician and programmer Meatball: NathanielThurston on Meatball: CmapsSandbox. Cmaps together with Trailmarks could be used to build
- maps of valuable OpenSource concepts and software
- the missing SilkRoads to Baazars for communities (and much more).
- Our G SocialDomaining project, which aims at the 200 million OLPC-kids
- the innovative free Paypal Storefront widget, which is allowed to be embedded in blogs and community sites, like MySpace, later in FaceBook and many others .. and of course on each site, where the owner can control their own HTML.
- the author's own observations of successful and less successful community strategies, discussed in the specialized MeatballWiki community. See G StayPoor+communities.
- and now the (by the author) discovered capability of Meatball:TrailMarks to embed not only YouTube widgets but also the free Paypal Storefront (Judging from their announcements, even Paypal.com doesn't appear to know this gem, aka FireTrail.com, yet).
As you write in your license terms, that only non-commercial use is allowed, many potential community-friendly users may be deterred from your otherwise excellent SocialSoftware. This may reduce the chances for Firetrail to really get the broad user base that it deserves and so encouraging other software developers to offer a similar product but with more community friendly licensing as e.g. Google.com,Youtube.com
So the author asks you in the name of zillions of possible users, please allow us (at least) a pilot-project of OpenBusiness to use Trailfire for WikiNomics oriented commercial use.
On the page AboutusOrg:WikiNomicsOnTrailfire the author has prepared a screenshot and a not yet functionally enabled Trailmark to "get the picture". You find there "Sold out", although nothing was "sold", until Trailfire CEO,CTO gives permission.
If you give green light, we can immediately start with a transaction of initial symbolic 100US$, which G RaymondKing the CEO of Aboutus.org has pledged.
The author makes a copy of his feedback in your Trailfire: FeedbackBox in form of this public letter on AboutusOrg:WikiNomicsOnTrailfire, where all links are conveniently resolved.
If you answer here on AboutusOrg:WikiNomicsOnTrailfire, this helps very much, because it documents your decision in public in accordance with the core value of Transparency.
You can have a good feeling, because vandalism here is rare, due to:
- password-protected membership
- a complete version history
- a big enough staff of patrouilling protectors
- a great insight by the site-owners to keep their investment protected
Your answer at your earliest convenience would make the author very happy, because he and the staff member MarkDilley has anything prepared to start this venture immediately.
All the best
fridemar 16:59, 31 May 2009 (PDT)
PS.: And here is the promised screenshot:
To see the TrailMark, you must have installed and enabled the TrailFire.com addon.
Screenshot with expanded Trailfire Mark
![[1]](http://images.aboutus.org/images/0/04/WikiNomicsOnTrailfireWithPaypalStorefront.png?){kind=link}
