Making the Markets

At Empire Avenue, we're constantly improving our ability to measure our user's online activity and influence. This is accomplished, in part, through "Market Makers," which are mathematical algorithms that analyze various aspects of each user's online activity and turn them into a virtual stock price. Oh, and they have some bit of personality to them. When we talk about Market Makers we talk about John Adams, Wannamaker, Kepler, Newton and more, all named after historical figures.

On Saturday night/Sunday morning (July 11th), we're implementing a major upgrade to our Market Makers, the biggest since our embryonic phase in early March (for those taking count, this would be the 3rd generation of Market Makers since we launched our closed beta). While the exact math will remain a closely guarded secret, here are a few effects you might notice:

* The Market Makers will no longer penalize you for taking a couple days off from online activity. This is important in that we realize that no person is meant to be "on" all the time and that isn't the point of the Empire Avenue market .

* Your Flickr activity and audience now contributes to your virtual stock price.

* Your virtual stock price will depend even more on how much you engage with your audience. So whether it's Twitter, Facebook or Flickr, elevated activity is only good if that activity results in greater engagement with your audience. Spamming any channel will not get you any higher! The best way to be on Empire Avenue is to be yourself.

* The Market Makers previously penalized you if you were not active on every type of connection that we had. For example, not being active on Facebook and Blogs would have hurt your virtual share price. We've altered that so that your virtual share price is more evenly formed from those networks that you are most active in. We feel this will compare equally amongst everyone, as they say, comparing apples with apples.

As part of the Dublin release, scheduled for July 20th, we will enable you to see scores for each of the networks that you are active in. That means, you will be able to see an Influencer Score for Flickr, for Facebook etc. The idea is that they should help you understand your overall virtual share price and perhaps help you improve your reach on each platform.

Now all these changes do not mean that there will be no drops. In measuring online activity as well as virtual share price buys and sells, you will see your virtual share price fluctuate, as it should; depending on speculation and what you do, your virtual share price may rise and fall on a daily basis. This is okay! If your virtual share price drops slightly, perhaps engage with your audience, or perhaps see it as an opportunity for people to buy your virtual stock cheaper!

As always, one thing hasn't changed. The surest way to increase your virtual stock price is to convince other users on Empire Avenue to buy your virtual shares!

For more on your virtual share price and what it means, check outh the following blog post from Brad: Selfworth and loafing on Empire Avenue

On Sunday Morning, July 11th, our next generation of Market Makers will be released!