EmanciPay – user-centric media payment system

EmanciPay is a new way for media to make money. It’s a choosing system — one by which readers, listeners and viewers can easily choose to pay whatever they like, whenever they like, for the media goods they use — and to do that on their own terms, and not just those of media suppliers’ arcane systems.

The idea is to build a new marketplace for media -€” one where supply and demand can relate, converse and transact business on mutually beneficial terms, rather than only on terms provided by thousands of different silo’d systems, each serving to hold the customer captive, and causing much inconvenience and friction in the process.

EmanciPay is a breed of VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management. VRM is the reciprocal of CRM or Customer Relationship Management. VRM provides customers with tools for engaging with vendors in ways that work for both parties. EmanciPay is one of those tools. Or a set of them.

ProjectVRM is a research and development project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. It was created by Doc Searls, a fellow at the Center, to encourage VRM development and to conduct research on its premises and its progress.