Listen to Khris Loux (@khrisloux) on this Building 43 video on JS-Kit’s new ❉ECHO commenting system in the context of my Social Network Sub System’s meme: http://bit.ly/ek3Ey – Some interesting fodder for noodling here!

Question: Is your plain vanilla commenting system on gigaom by design and intentional?

It would seem to me that using Disqus, Intense Debate or JS-Kit would generate more value and interaction on gigaom.

I think JS-Kit’s new ❉ECHO is birthing a paradigm shift in commentage and distributed/disaggrated social networking.
@AAinslie
http://www.twitter.com/aainslie

RT @davewiner: If Twitter is worth $500 million, we, the public, should buy them, and make the firehose a free public commodity.
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Dave: I love this idea and it would be a brilliant test case for “CrowdFunding”. It would also be a true litmus test of the value twitter users (i.e. the lifeblood of Twitter as a commercial company) are willing to put on what the twitter platform/medium is really worth to them – not the VC’s.

The way this may be accomplished is for twitter users to form a not-for-profit and then contribute (donate) into a fund which would then buy Twitter co.

The upside to this model is that the money donated into the fund would be tax deductible (for US tax payers persons – you would need to set up a mirror registered charity in the UK, which is the 2nd largest twitter user base, to avail UK persons the same facility) and not cost the crowdfunders’ a dime. Effectively the US govt. would be indirectly funding the acquisition. Democracy at work.

The NFP that acquires twitter can then run twitter corp. as a commercial entity for the benefit of the NFP. Mozilla hybrid model. This model is also being adopted by the likes of Marc Canter (aka “Mr. Digital-Cities-Are-The-New-Black” – formerly “Mr. Open-Is-The-New-Black”!) who has harnessed the model to at his new incarnation, Digital City Mechanics in NEO (North Eastern Ohio).

Dave: I think this is doable. What do you think? Want to lead the charge? We’ll follow!

Good question and that needs some food for thought. Let me noodle on this?

Frankly, at this point, I think it is next to impossible to try to accurately value twitter as they are in the business of building “rail tacks”. The “rolling stock” will come later and the individual wagons are going to be provisioned by many, including twitter.

Slightly off topic, but relevant:

If Facebook is worth $5 billion with a reach of 200 million “registered users” and twitter is worth $500 million with 40-50 million “registered user” (both with high percentage of inactive but registered users), then how much is Clearspring (or Gigya, JS-Kit, Disqus, Intense Debate) worth?

For example, Clearspring, which is what I call a SNSS “Social Network Sub-System” (yep, you heard it hear first folks!), has a reach of 500 million users with high level of engagement and they are harvesting godly amounts of data that can be used to monetize their ecosystems.

Om: What’s your take on this?

Search is front and center. It would be super-easy for them to put ads in there at this moment and make some decent cash.

I’d bet a good chunk of change on it.

I think that indeed is a good case to make. I think it is easier to sell the possibilities that the reality. I think they are smart about the revenue side of things.