...the wheat from the chaff.  And, at the risk of stating the obvious, following the money is a good way to see what people are really interested in, as they vote with their wallets.  Particularly during these challenging economic times.

Craig’s List has always struck me as a good example of funny money.  The company is private so no one really knows how much the business makes.  However, last week it was estimated that the website creates revenues of approximately $100m.  Not bad for a company with 30 staff that continues to infuriate the traditional big bucks analysts by talking about its own lack of vision and aversion to profit maximisation.  Ask Craig Newmark where the money comes from and he says, ‘listening, listening and then more listening.’  Sucking up America’s classified advertising industry along the way didn’t hurt, but you can't question the man's contrarian views.

Another area of funny money is virtual gifting, where people pay to send tiny pieces of software to one another on social networks.  And if you thought the reassembling of pyjamas was an unusual way to make a living then think again.  In the world of virtual gifting almost anything goes.  Why not send a friend a picture of a broken old shopping trolley?  Or a clip-on tie?  Or some rhubarb & custard 80s Retro sweets?  Not real ones you understand.  Just tiny digital images.  But more remarkable than the randomness of the gifts is the growing value of the market that has emerged.  As much as $50m on Facebook alone.  And a lot more across the web.

And then there’s Apple’s iPhone Appstore where almost 50k applications have been downloaded more than one billion times to create a market that might be making Steve Jobs as much as $100m per year.  As AppSherpa notes, 'There are currently 45458 apps available in the iTunes store, which if you were to purchase all of them would cost $108,863.32.'  All very much funny money for the developers, even if the AppStore’s main function for Apple remains selling iPhones and iPod Touches.

But why stop there?  The ultimate version of funny money is to create your own currency.  Virtual currencies aren’t particularly new.  Just think about those little Monopoly notes we have all played with at some point.  However, when Second Life’s Linden Dollar was linked to the $USD a few years ago, allowing people to trade in and out of the game with hard cash, often for virtual property, a new threshold was crossed.  Today, a healthy shadow market exists for World of Warcraft gold, for people who can’t be bothered with all that dragon slaying and guild battling.  Now they can get ahead by buying cheap WoW currency with their credit cards.  All of which has led to rather wonderful web pages such as this where real and virtual currency exchange rates sit alongside one another.  Thai Baht anyone?  How about Star Wars Galaxies credit then?  Indian rupees?  Or City of Heroes Influence maybe?

However, Second Life with its crazy sex markets and WoW with its fantasy focus have always been seen as ‘just-for-geeks’.  Innovations and ideas that appear from such places as a result are often dismissed, whatever their value or interest.  Which makes the recent appearance of currency systems on mainstream social networks all the more interesting.  Facebook is just about to expand its Credits system, mainly to allow it to take a share of its own booming apps market, but possibly also for general online retail.  While Hi5 also launched its own currency, called Coins, earlier this year, but has now gone one step further by making it available across the web as an OpenSocial 'Virtual Currency API'.

In a recent Scoble interview, web financier Fred Wilson talking about the coming web suggests that, "We could maybe start getting accounts in these social (media) systems that, maybe get some value, (creating) accretion from what we do in the system and allowing us to use them as accounts to move money around. Much in the way that people already do in Second Life - people will start doing it in Facebook.  Which they already do in Facebook games."  Such dynamics could amount to an exchange rate between whuffie and the $USD.  Social currencies anyone?

A while back I wrote that my shorthand for conversations about web-o-nomics was NICE, by which I meant that the web was creating New Infrastructure, Culture and Economics.  More than two years on, the changes in all three areas just keep on coming.  But having established vast new social Infrastructures (Facebook now has a population as big as most countries in the world), and sweeping Cultural changes, such as that signified by the Pirate Party winning a seat in the European Parliament, it may be the case that Economics begins to see similar shifts.  An explosion of Funny Money possibly?

This may all sound like a load of futuristic digital gobble-de-gook but the remarkable point is that most of the above is happening today.  There will be plenty of twists along the way, many of which will leave people scratching their heads.  But there's no doubt many unlikely opportunities will also emerge for those who are watching closely.  Just as they did for my Uncle in those government auction rooms many years ago.

...Second Life within which people are (still) creating successful businesses. 

Much has been said about the economics of these new networked marketplaces where individuals can play with the big boys.  In his book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky borrows the thinking of economist Ronald Coase to succinctly describe what’s happening as the result of, ‘new social tools…lowering the cost of co-ordinating group action’.  But perhaps more interesting is the effects it is having on the lives and careers of everyday people.  Yes that’s everyday people, not just the geeks who populate the AppStore or Zuckerberg’s world.

Once the online trading choice for regular folk was confined to eBay.  Now there are plenty more places to pursue an online career.  Just look at Etsy – the stylish online craft market.  The ‘Quit Your Day Job’ stories on the company’s blog is a wonderful record of the way in which the networked world is providing new opportunities for people to radically change their career path.  And once again, it’s booming.  This type of flea market business or 'microtrading' has always been thought of as small change.  But now it's big money.  $100 million worth of goods were sold on Etsy in 2008.  (Remember most of those things people have made in their kitchens, sheds or garages).  Which explains the emergence of other craft markets including Folksy and Dawanda.

Of course for every person who manages to create an income or career from a networked enterprise, there are many who fail.  But as Etsy shows, networked economics (or cockroach economics as Paul Graham says) means very low start-up and running costs.  So while failure might cost a lot in terms of time, the capital costs may be tiny, so failure needn’t result in financial disaster.

Of course, none of this means the end of large enterprises or big business.  Etsy is generating $1m a month, while on the Facebook platform there are at least a half dozen other companies in the $10 million to $50 million range.  Not exactly the FTSE-100 but very respectable for such new markets.  And as the share-and-compare economy grows and transaction costs plummet, new opportunities will undoubtedly appear.  Who would have predicted a market for elopement announcements for instance?  No doubt we will see plenty of traditional corporates moving into these new marketplaces as the revenues grow, most likely through acquisition.  As Fred Wilson notes one of the disruptive outcomes of the networked economy seems to be that successful companies are smaller in terms of revenue but much more profitable, making them very attractive acquisition targets.

Once upon a time an independent operator selling handmade goods – digital or otherwise - out of their bedroom or shed would either have been thought of as an oddball or just not had access to a marketplace of any size.  However, as trust in corporate world continues to falter, the demand for flexible living grows, and the share-and-compare economy drives word-of-mouth, networked careers make a lot more sense.  Increasingly, a lot of people feel like Etsy trader Alissa: ‘Coming home at 5:30 after having my brain and creative spirit chewed on by corporate trolls all day did nothing for my productivity!’.

I wonder if these were the changes my mum was referring to?

...muck up your corporate blog, just moderate them out.  And the same is true of open data.  The use of APIs allows streams of data to be shared in ways that contribute positively to influential web culture - without fear of the walls tumbling down.  It's not a question of forgetting everything you know and leaving the keys to your company's safe hanging in reception.

As Tim Berners-Lee puts it: 'This doesn't mean all data should and will be free -- you decide what's open and in the public realm and what stays behind a firewall. But the decision not to trade data should be because you don't want to, and not because your data just doesn't understand the other party's.'

As ever, the crucial exercise is the application of strategy to work effectively with the cultural forces that open data will unleash.  However challenging some of those forces may feel.  Because, not surprisingly, a failure to pay attention to the open culture in which your customers are increasingly immersed, eventually makes you look out-of-touch.  Which creates opportunities for others to introduce themselves.

Just think about the way in which the music industry focused on the technology, ignored the culture and in doing so relinquished control of most of its distribution system to a third party.  However, despite such powerful warning signs, making the case for engaging with the open participative culture being driven by today’s web - within some corporate walls - remains difficult.

In the UK, the current MPs' expenses splurge-of-shame is a devastating example of a powerful, influential organisation being badly damaged by insisting on the maintenance of black box systems that are suddenly levered open and laid bare to the world.  The splendid Douglas Galbi, writing about open data in a different context, states the case in a way that rings strangely true as the Daily Telegraph opens the window on a musty Parliament and its reluctance to share:

"One can easily imagine business reasons for not making data public.  Data costs money to collect and maintain.  Others shouldn't be able to get it for free.  Selling limited access to data can serve as a source of business revenue.  Making data public might reveal some information that would be better not to reveal.  If others gain access to the data, they might figure out how to compete more effectively with your business.  Fear, uncertainty, and doubt can prompt organizations to do nothing, say nothing, share nothing.

Making data public can be a good business practice.  Making data public enhances the credibility of data through widespread, independent review of it.  Making data public can raise an organization's business profile and foster its association with valuable knowledge.   Making data public can lead to further development of an industry.  Making data public contributes to the stock of public knowledge that will endure and grow forever.  That's a noble project in which everyone can and should play a part."

Indeed.  Corporations and organisations that do not engage with the culture that is being driven by the open web may not find themselves exposed quite as brutally as Lord Hogg (I know) whose tax-payer funded, moat-cleaning activities have left UK voters aghast.  However, they do run the risk of becoming trapped in corporate towers, behind company moats, as people stare back at them and wonder why it is they don't want to share.