Meandering Empire Avenue
Clipped from: www.empireavenue.com (share this clip){EAV_BLOG_VER:3dd6964add4eabb1}
What is that? Gobble-di-gook. Of the Empire Avenue variety...
Unlike other avenues I'm prone to probe, this one is different. No smells. No found poetry. No dog crap to sidestep. Well, not literally, at least.
You see, Empire Avenue is a digital avenue. Actually, it's more like a digital universe. I wandered in a couple of months back out of curiosity. A digital flaneur meandering a newly discovered digital avenue. A couple of days exploring, and I was hooked. A bit spooky, really.
So I left.
Well, not totally. I kept me account open with an eye to returning when the sublime summertime non-digital world stopped distracting. But the emails, the notices, the reminders continued. People kept buying stock in me. And some began to worry that my stock price was falling, rising, erratic.
And yet I was too absorbed in Rosslyn Redux and Redacting Rosslyn, in gardening and windsurfing, to venture back into the digital avenue.
Until this morning. And once again, I'm intrigued.
What is Empire Avenue?
Empire Avenue is the Social Stock Market, where you can Grow your Social Capital online. Here's how it works, you get to discover valuable, interesting, cool, fun people online and then based scores or share price, invest virtual currency in their profiles by buying shares in our Social Stock Market. It's boatloads of fun, and that simple act of buying shares in someone you think is worth your currency, you will create new connections and as people invest in you, grow your own social capital and get more value in and out of your networks! (Empire Avenue)
Weird? Dehumanizing? Perhaps a little. Perhaps not. Intriguing. It's not too different in concept from Klout, but the "game" is better engineered. More intriguing. Sort of Klout meets Monopoly.
I'm fascinated at the idea of people as brands and the open and unabashed marketplace built on these brands. A modern slave market? A unflinchingly realistic look at "real life"? Verdict's still out, but this flaneur is intrigued enough to stroll the Avenue to see what I can discover. Feel free to tip your hat if we pass along the way...
