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BUYOSPHERIAN MASTER PLAN FOR CHANGING THE WORLD
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Citizens of the earth…It has come to our attention that things are a little out of hand. We produce more than we can consume, we consume things that pretty much consume us, and, in general, we are less happy than we have ever been in the history of humankind. That doesn’t sound like an awesome way to live.

We, ourselves, the minions behind the Buyosphere, are consumers. We like to buy and own nice stuff. We understand that the answer isn’t living on a commune sharing hairbrushes and recycling our toothpaste water. Let’s not throw the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bath water. There are loads of good bits to the free market: innovation, better standards of living, life saving technology, peep-toe wedges, Scrabble, safety from the elements and such things.

We just think it could be better. And that better comes from one place in the future: consumers (you and I) owning the bits of information we produce – the data. And in our case, we think that the information about the stuff you own and buy is pretty nifty. And, well, we’ve imagined a world in which you own it and it is no longer just being mined, bought and sold by web-robots. And that world is ALSO nifty.

So, check it out, we have actually outlined 5 initial over-arching, world-changing, awesome-making goals that are achieved through the simple act of you and us owning our own data. We hope you join us in the rapture:

#1 Meaningful Consumption

This is not just buying more, it’s about buying smarter. We believe that transparency in everything, including what we buy has a positive long term effect on the world.

See The Story of Stuff for the scary facts around over-consumption and the case for more meaningful consumption.

#2 Democratization of Commerce (C2B)

The end of blind/mass advertising. The beginning of respectful engagement between brands and customers. Consumers calling the shots means WIN for all.

See VRM for a project that is all about reversing the direction of the B2C to C2B in all facets of life.

#3 Data Portability & Open Standards

Semantic commerce is good for everyone. The customers (who will own their own data/understand their patterns/have control of their own cookies), the brands/vendors (who will have insight, when granted, to wider, deeper buying patterns of their customers) and the world (planning purposes, economic understanding, etc).

See The Locker Project and Microformats for great projects that geekaliciously look at data in this way. Also see our Data Portability Policy for our own commitment to this.

#4 Promoting Local/Small/Independent Business

Personalization and discovery evens out the playing field. Helps people discover treasures at theedge of the web. Where the SEO/SEM/retargeters don’t get us.

See Etsy for an example of what this could look like (we heart Etsy, but see the future as more decentralized).

#5 Rise of Collaborative Consumption

With the data democratized, we can aid sharing, recycling, trading, swapping, donating, gifting and all other parts of a product life cycle beyond manufacture and consume.

See Rachel Botsman’s TED Talk on Collaborative Consumption and Lisa Gansky’s TED Talk on The Mesh for showing how collaborative consumption and shared thinking is the next wave of our world.

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That’s what we’ve come up with…so far…but we think there is more. We are crazy and audacious enough to believe that we can do this. In fact, we think it’s already happening, so why don’t we all steer it in a direction that we all benefit from?