Buyosphere sets sailing towards the semantic web 3.0 with data centric business model

The Semantic Web is a “web of data” that enables machines to understand the semantics, or meaning, of information on the World Wide Web. Buyosphere, a fresh start-up, is trying to democratize the information about your shopping practices and patterns. The best part is that you control and use your data. Semantic commerce is good for everyone. The customers who will own their own data can have control and insight of their buying pattern. Brands/vendors (who will have insight to such data, when granted, can ensure better product recommendations and customer satisfaction apart from better planning, preparation and expansion opportunities.

Tara Hunt

Buyosphere which was a TechCrunch Disrupt alumnus recently launched after going through a re-branding where they changed over from their old identity – Shwowp. The concept of Buyosphere is, to do away with the need for web cookies and other ways by which users are currently tracked online. Information and shopping history information communicated directly by consumers to brands holds more value for brands and enables a better feedback and engagement between them. There could also be opportunities for users to exchange information for deals and offers from brands.

Buyosphere works pretty much like your status update except that here you do it with your trusted circle of friends and the updates are about stuff you buy and shop for. As the internet is moving towards web 3.0 where all the data assimilation currently happening will see more effective use of such data; it looks like Buyosphere might be heading towards a promising service.  Tara Hunt, the co-founder and CEO of Buyosphere took some of our questions to help us understand Buyosphere in detail. Following is an extract.

What significance does the model of Buyosphere have, to a common person?

Ultimately, we’ll have control and insight into our own data. And when we have that, we can unlock all sorts of cool things. Visually viewing our shopping patterns. Discovery of interesting, unique things at the edge of the web suited for us that goes beyond search engines. Being able to share, lend, swap and otherwise pass your products onto others and watch what becomes of them. These are just a few of the dozens of ideas we’ve already thought up that are unlocked because we have our shopping histories.

Why would people want to tell others what they shop for?

Good question. Actually, it’s what Geoffrey Miller and other evolutionary psychologists call Taste Signaling. “Many products are signals first and material objects second.” We are already doing this on social networks. In fact, talking about purchases is the #1 activity for women on sites like Facebook. I think people associate ‘talking about shopping’ with some teenager squealing over new shoes…but we all do it. Bought the newest gadget? Definitely posting that. Bought and read a great book? Yep. Found a fantastic deal? Will definitely share that! With everything we post, we are signaling to others a message about who we are. I’m a geek. I’m fit. I’m hip. That sort of thing.

Aren’t people doing this on Facebook already to their circle of friends? How is Buyosphere going to be a different? Why should some one announce their shopping pattern on Facebook and Buyosphere; if not only on Buyosphere instead of Facebook?

Yep. As I said above, people are already doing this on Facebook. But where we are offering something different is by giving users their own data and building tools around it. Facebook sells your data to advertisers. We’re about you leveraging your own data through our platform and tools. Not to mention that Facebook is a bit of a sinkhole of data. You can’t even search your own entries!

The gritty Tara Hunt has an equally focused and determined team which is currently working on the Beta version of Buyosphere. Tara built her career off of the internet, and has worked in online marketing for over 11 years now. She has worked with over 30 startups, founded two consultancies (Rogue Strategies + Citizen Agency), wrote a book in 2009 that is now published in 8 languages, spoke at over 100 conferences worldwide and has started worldwide movements such as Coworking. She has over 36,000 followers on Twitter and is considered one of the pioneers of Social Media. The self funded and bootstrapped start-up is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

If you want to know how the journey of a self funded start-up entrepreneur would be, watch the video below.