Curating a Polymathica Group: Polymathica.network-maker.com is creating a number of groups that will be professionally curated. The idea, obviously, is to create a spectrum of discourse at a higher level of intellectual sophistication than can be easily found elsewhere. Simultaneously, the groups will create highly targeted advertising opportunities that will allow members of P.E.N. to reach their potential customers in a highly effecient and cost effective way. The two will create a positive feedback loop that will drive us toward full market penetration.
Unlike Facebook, Polymathica Groups will be limited in number. Groups are intended to be funnels, bringing all Polymathicans with a specific interest to a single Internet locus. People will be able to create subgroups and forum threads within groups. However, proposed new Groups will need to establish sufficient conceptual distance from existing groups to make consolidation inappropriate.
The Administrators who will curate the groups will receive 40% of the advertising revenue for group and forum pageviews. They will also have the ability to e-mail group members in order to market related products, services and content.
Bloggers: There are literally millions of blogs and few of them provide their blogger with meaningful income. The problem is not necessarily the quality of the blog but rather a failure of marketing. Both curating a Polymathica group and writing for The Polymath, a free weekly pdf magazine of analysis and commentary will provide a viable route to traffic acquisition. Bloggers will be able to submit articles for publication and, upon acceptance, they will be distributed to all Polymathicans who have not opted out. The article will contain a author bio box which will have a blog subscription link. So, not only will the blogger be paid 40% of ad revenue upon publication, they will gain an efficient route to building a blog readership. Group administrators may also operate a blog and submit to The Polymath.
Novelists: Self publication of e-books has become an important activity, but like blogging has suffered from an absence of cost effective marketing options. Amazon.com will place your e-book for sale on their site and pay the author 70% of sales. However, they do not promote the novel as a service included in that commission. Both Polymathica.network-maker.com and The Polymath will provide the e-book author with a clear and profitable route to substantial sales. They may market directly, however, most will market through Reviewers. In this way, they can get everything that Amazon provides, plus marketing and likely for the same 30% or even a little less.
Reviewers: In the Industrial Age consumers developed loyalty to 'bricks and mortar' retailers because their experience was that they offered quality and preference specific products at a reasonable price. Reviewers were ad supported and usually affiliated with news outlets.
In the Information Age, this will become a more direct process. Reviewers will develop followers who have found their advice to be reliable. The 'click to place in basket' will be secondary to review. Some Reviewers may become sort of like a 'trusted friend' and there will be little or no specific product category. Others may be very specific.
For example, someone may review hard Science Fiction novels. In these cases, e-book novelists will submit their e-book to the reviewer and if the reviewer likes it, they can count on substantial sales. Reviewers will be affiliates of the products, services and content that they review.
Reviewers: In the Industrial Age consumers developed loyalty to 'bricks and mortar' retailers because their experience was that they offered quality and preference specific products at a reasonable price. Reviewers were ad supported and usually affiliated with news outlets.
In the Information Age, this will become a more direct process. Reviewers will develop followers who have found their advice to be reliable. The 'click to place in basket' will be secondary to review. Some Reviewers may become sort of like a 'trusted friend' and there will be little or no specific product category. Others may be very specific.
For example, someone may review hard Science Fiction novels. In these cases, e-book novelists will submit their e-book to the reviewer and if the reviewer likes it, they can count on substantial sales. Reviewers will be affiliates of the products, services and content that they review.
Polymathica TV: We have entered the age of Internet TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, CBS All Access and NBC programming are all waves of the future. However, there will also be an 'Indie' market, most of which will be targeted at a single large, homogenous marketing channel like Polymathica. Production enterprises will bring together a creative team which will include producers, writers, directors, editors, special effects, etc. to create a series. As 'Indies' they will need to use the Season Pass business model. They will either market directly or through Reviewers.
Home Schooling Modules: The Polymathica educational model is based upon self-paced, autodidactic learning. At the University level it is assumed that the candidate will be able to both ask and answer questions and institutional interaction will be in the form of written and oral defense of theses. However, in the K-12 level more structure will be needed. These can be done as learning modules. The question is set and the student will be provided with a searchable database. The module will also include a teacher's guide for evalution of the resultant work. This will be marketed to home school initially, however, over time, it is expected that 'bricks and mortar' schools based upon this educational philosophy will be established by Polymathicans.
Musicians: Kevin Kelly wrote an influentual article '1,000 True Fans' in which he suggested that independent creatives can craft a viable career by finding 1,000 fans who will essentially buy whatever they create. His math was 1,000x$100=$100,000 in annual revenue. While the model is vastly over-simplified, it make a good point. An individual artist may produce two albums for download per year and if (s)he can sell them to 4,000 people at $15 each, annual revenue will be $120,000. The fact is that finding 'true fans' is not that easy. However, Polymathica makes it feasible for musicians that create refined and sophisticated albums. For musisians the proper model is more like '5,000 true fans at $30 each', recognizing that there is a marketing cost, since marketing will generally take place through Reviewers.
Game Designers: Facebook derives as much as 12% of its revenue from games. Polymathicans will be generally attracted to more intellectually sophisticated games than the general population. Clearly, online games will require development teams. Like most products they will be marketed through Reviewers, but will probably also have regular, highly targeted ads. Game Designers will create their own website and pay a percent of revenue generated to Polymathica.network-maker.com for advertising or to the reviewer for driving traffic to that site.
Conclusion
There will likely be as many business models as there will be Member Enterprises. P.E.N. will be providing an opportunity rich and success prone productive environment, but it will still be the responsibility of each Member to find their proper way to function within that environment.
Conclusion
There will likely be as many business models as there will be Member Enterprises. P.E.N. will be providing an opportunity rich and success prone productive environment, but it will still be the responsibility of each Member to find their proper way to function within that environment.
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