Ask HN: any white-label/SaaS virtual-currency/"MyPoints" services out there?
Especially for the long tail of start-ups, this isn't always feasible but would be Really Valuable to have -- certainly for a feasible monthly fee. This is because smaller players depend a lot more on user contributions to grow the value of their offerings for the customer base as a whole.
Translated my Shareware into your language? That will make you 500 X. Signed up for our newsletter? That's 50. Following on Twitter or "Fanned" on Facebook? Another 50.
At the same time it would be awesome for the solution to translate these points back into value for those who have it. X points then get you another n months of "free" premium support, n additional users for your license or a discount of n for your license upgrade --- or whatever value is being exchanged.
Of course, ultimately it would be even better if these "points programs" (which would be like Ning networks -- everyone can roll their own or join an existing program) could allow for inter-currency trade. If you lost interest in the benefits my company can offer for your points, maybe you can trade them in with another provider who is willing to participate.
I know that originally money is the ultimate currency for exchanging value, services or goods. At the same time there's this psychological resistance about money. For the recipient, it immediately brings external motivation into something you were about to do anyway for intrinsic reasons, and you have to start doing calculations and get out of the "flow of doing something worthwhile just for its own sake" -- whereas, if you just get "brownie points" those are simply nice to have around and enjoy their value at a later point, without being all economical about it. For the other party, they wouldn't pay money for newsletter signups or social followers but they know that ultimately these do have monetary value for them, they just don't and can't know the exact figures. So that's why even though I acknowledge the "supremacy of real money" for most serious transactions, I see a great need for and great value in this.
Virtual currencies and brownie-point credit systems have proven their case, and now what we need is a white label / Ning-like "roll your own" provider.
Do you know of any startup or other entity working in that space, or existing services providing a sub-set of the above requirements?
Apart from monthly recurring income, I see revenue potentials for everything else you can do with virtual currencies. Just like PayPal, you can "keep a cut" of every "transaction", and then later hopefully somehow convert it even back into real money, or at least cash in on some of the stuff the brownie points get you in your own system.
Why don't I do it myself? I ran into this need while working on something else -- and I don't intend to abandon it, or cut down on my time investments for that at the moment. If I started developing this myself, I might get caught in just a similar situation with another need then coming up. Ideally I want to learn about existing solutions -- or about anyone doing this -- or about anyone having read this who is fired up enough about the idea to get started on building a prototype for this ;)
Thanks for listening...