A lot of people are resistant to any kind of business uses for the #Fediverse , but consider this:

- While most of us here are rightfully scornful of #Capitalism , the notion of a "market economy" is not going to go away. There are innumerable small to midsized businesses in the world who _aren't_ like the Capitalists we know and loathe - they haven't established any monopolies, they haven't managed regulatory capture, and they are oppressed by Big Tech just as much as ordinary people are.

- For many such businesses, maybe even the majority, a #Facebook Business Page is more important than a website, and thus many such small businesses _only_ have a Facebook Business Page, since it is far easier to set up than hosting your own website on your own domain, it is easier for your customers to find you there (because #GoogleSucks ), and it is easier for you to interact with your customers as well.

I think it would be very worthwhile if the Fediverse would develop an alternative to Facebook Business Pages for such businesses.

A good example for an industry that could benefit from such "Fediverse Business Pages" would be the #TTRPG industry. While some gamers might whine that "RPG books cost too much these days!", the reality is that this is an industry that has razor-thin margins, and only the very biggest TTRPG companies have employees that number more than in the single digits. Every business decision they have to make must involve the question:

"Is this worth the effort?"

Well, if there _was_ a Fediverse Business Page system that was either easy to self-host, or easy to join on larger instances, and which had a similar design to Facebook Business Pages, then there wouldn't be much effort involved in adding the same material to the former if they already maintained the latter. And as #Meta declines, the Fediverse could gradually take its place.

What would such a Fediverse Business Page require? It would need an ActivityPub-enabled feed, of course. It would need a configurable link list that would point towards their product pages or sales platforms, as well as space for all the usual business information. And it would require a robust scheduling system with a calendar view (I used the one provided by Meta for a time, and I think it is possible to do better).

Did I miss any important features?

Oh, and the same system would work well for non-business organizations as well - whether clubs, NGOs, or even political parties!

@juergen_hubert interesting idea. Should it have modules? E.g. menus for food places, calendar module for schedules, shop / product module for shops, services for services, a messaging / tooting module for images and updates, location / maps / addresses / opening times etc etc etc

A lot of people are resistant to any kind of business uses for the #Fediverse , but consider this:

- While most of us here are rightfully scornful of #Capitalism , the notion of a "market economy" is not going to go away. There are innumerable small to midsized businesses in the world who _aren't_ like the Capitalists we know and loathe - they haven't established any monopolies, they haven't managed regulatory capture, and they are oppressed by Big Tech just as much as ordinary people are.

- For many such businesses, maybe even the majority, a #Facebook Business Page is more important than a website, and thus many such small businesses _only_ have a Facebook Business Page, since it is far easier to set up than hosting your own website on your own domain, it is easier for your customers to find you there (because #GoogleSucks ), and it is easier for you to interact with your customers as well.

I think it would be very worthwhile if the Fediverse would develop an alternative to Facebook Business Pages for such businesses.

A good example for an industry that could benefit from such "Fediverse Business Pages" would be the #TTRPG industry. While some gamers might whine that "RPG books cost too much these days!", the reality is that this is an industry that has razor-thin margins, and only the very biggest TTRPG companies have employees that number more than in the single digits. Every business decision they have to make must involve the question:

"Is this worth the effort?"

Well, if there _was_ a Fediverse Business Page system that was either easy to self-host, or easy to join on larger instances, and which had a similar design to Facebook Business Pages, then there wouldn't be much effort involved in adding the same material to the former if they already maintained the latter. And as #Meta declines, the Fediverse could gradually take its place.

What would such a Fediverse Business Page require? It would need an ActivityPub-enabled feed, of course. It would need a configurable link list that would point towards their product pages or sales platforms, as well as space for all the usual business information. And it would require a robust scheduling system with a calendar view (I used the one provided by Meta for a time, and I think it is possible to do better).

Did I miss any important features?

Oh, and the same system would work well for non-business organizations as well - whether clubs, NGOs, or even political parties!

@juergen_hubert Seems like the most important feature would be some mechanism by which one could trust that the page actually is from the named business.

A lot of people are resistant to any kind of business uses for the #Fediverse , but consider this:

- While most of us here are rightfully scornful of #Capitalism , the notion of a "market economy" is not going to go away. There are innumerable small to midsized businesses in the world who _aren't_ like the Capitalists we know and loathe - they haven't established any monopolies, they haven't managed regulatory capture, and they are oppressed by Big Tech just as much as ordinary people are.

- For many such businesses, maybe even the majority, a #Facebook Business Page is more important than a website, and thus many such small businesses _only_ have a Facebook Business Page, since it is far easier to set up than hosting your own website on your own domain, it is easier for your customers to find you there (because #GoogleSucks ), and it is easier for you to interact with your customers as well.

I think it would be very worthwhile if the Fediverse would develop an alternative to Facebook Business Pages for such businesses.

A good example for an industry that could benefit from such "Fediverse Business Pages" would be the #TTRPG industry. While some gamers might whine that "RPG books cost too much these days!", the reality is that this is an industry that has razor-thin margins, and only the very biggest TTRPG companies have employees that number more than in the single digits. Every business decision they have to make must involve the question:

"Is this worth the effort?"

Well, if there _was_ a Fediverse Business Page system that was either easy to self-host, or easy to join on larger instances, and which had a similar design to Facebook Business Pages, then there wouldn't be much effort involved in adding the same material to the former if they already maintained the latter. And as #Meta declines, the Fediverse could gradually take its place.

What would such a Fediverse Business Page require? It would need an ActivityPub-enabled feed, of course. It would need a configurable link list that would point towards their product pages or sales platforms, as well as space for all the usual business information. And it would require a robust scheduling system with a calendar view (I used the one provided by Meta for a time, and I think it is possible to do better).

Did I miss any important features?

Oh, and the same system would work well for non-business organizations as well - whether clubs, NGOs, or even political parties!

@juergen_hubert so, when are we gonna start designing and building this, Jürgen?

A lot of people are resistant to any kind of business uses for the #Fediverse , but consider this:

- While most of us here are rightfully scornful of #Capitalism , the notion of a "market economy" is not going to go away. There are innumerable small to midsized businesses in the world who _aren't_ like the Capitalists we know and loathe - they haven't established any monopolies, they haven't managed regulatory capture, and they are oppressed by Big Tech just as much as ordinary people are.

- For many such businesses, maybe even the majority, a #Facebook Business Page is more important than a website, and thus many such small businesses _only_ have a Facebook Business Page, since it is far easier to set up than hosting your own website on your own domain, it is easier for your customers to find you there (because #GoogleSucks ), and it is easier for you to interact with your customers as well.

I think it would be very worthwhile if the Fediverse would develop an alternative to Facebook Business Pages for such businesses.

A good example for an industry that could benefit from such "Fediverse Business Pages" would be the #TTRPG industry. While some gamers might whine that "RPG books cost too much these days!", the reality is that this is an industry that has razor-thin margins, and only the very biggest TTRPG companies have employees that number more than in the single digits. Every business decision they have to make must involve the question:

"Is this worth the effort?"

Well, if there _was_ a Fediverse Business Page system that was either easy to self-host, or easy to join on larger instances, and which had a similar design to Facebook Business Pages, then there wouldn't be much effort involved in adding the same material to the former if they already maintained the latter. And as #Meta declines, the Fediverse could gradually take its place.

What would such a Fediverse Business Page require? It would need an ActivityPub-enabled feed, of course. It would need a configurable link list that would point towards their product pages or sales platforms, as well as space for all the usual business information. And it would require a robust scheduling system with a calendar view (I used the one provided by Meta for a time, and I think it is possible to do better).

Did I miss any important features?

Oh, and the same system would work well for non-business organizations as well - whether clubs, NGOs, or even political parties!

@juergen_hubert Isn’t Bomb Fire designed to do this very thing? It had it’s 1.0 release I beleive

@WeirdWriter

You mean #Bonfire ?

@juergen_hubert Yes I was thinking someone could take one of their apps and extensions and easily make a thing that you described https://bonfirenetworks.org/apps/

@WeirdWriter @juergen_hubert

Yes, Bonfire deserves a close look before starting something new.

AND i love this idea.

If it's not primarily self hosted, easy portability of both content and followers will be crucial to this project's success. These businesses can't afford to lose their hard work.

(Source: I've been actively building sites and designing digital marketing plans for small and medium sized businesses for 15 years.)

@alisynthesis @WeirdWriter @juergen_hubert i would also suggest that Emissary could be a good starting point for this, but yes I think Bonfire might be interesting here. Incidentally I think the notion of some kind of “business pages” is totally valid! /cc @benpate

Hey Andy, thanks for the mention!

I might add a map of physical locations, and a map-based search for businesses.

@juergen_hubert - would you be interested in making a drawing or two of what this might look like? I'd be happy to make a prototype.

I have my hands full with.. stuff.. at the moment, so I'm not able to do much design work. But once we know what we're doing, the actual coding might only take an afternoon or two.

@andypiper @alisynthesis @WeirdWriter