What about the idea to develop a preinstalled app for Fairphone to connect all the phone users in a dedicated social network?
Imho this app could have a big potential because Fairphone buyers have affinities in buying behaviour, probably the most of them are involved in fair consumerism local movements.
I don’t think that FP as a company should develop such an app, and I also don’t really see the benefits. There are a lot of social networks out there (heard about diaspora? There is even a client available through f-droid.), and we also have the FP forum. If there is the need, I could imagine a forum category dedicated to ethical purchasing, but for now, Fairphone Café seems to be the first address to look.
As I understood the main goal of FairPhone initiative is to promote a fair way of producing smartphones. So IMHO FairPhone is strictly connected to fair consumerism. And it could promote it through a “neutral” dedicated social network, in the sense that it will not promote specifical producers but it will offer a tool to connect users to producers.
I think I understand better now, what you are saying! So you are thinking about connecting producers and consumers better?
Why not start a new thread in the forum, which contains a list of producers/acquisition groups, listed by countries, where consumers can inform themselves and then post their experiences below the list in the first post? Also producers could get involved and promote their products. I do not see a need for a dedicated social network, at least not specifically connected to the FP movement.
I think the idea as explained by marco is a fair point and a good idea. as a means to provide some “fair lifestyle” app, this would help to tie the community together and show newbies alternatives to Facebook.
Why not create a FP social app that builds on diaspora and offers an easy access for everyone to jion this decentral network?
This way, FP could help leverage the usage of alternative decentralized concepts while making setting them up easy as a breeze and easy to understand (which currently is not the case).
a “fairpho.net” subset implementation of diaspora could be a great start!
Basicly the idea is that: FairPhone is a fair trade product, so phone buyers are involved in fair trade local groups and ethical purchasing groups. Let’s connect Fairphone users through a fair trade social network app preinstalled on the phone, to give them a way to buy goods through fair trade networks. In this way Fairphone became more than a phone, it’s a tool to connect with fair trade worldwide.
Sure, not in an exclusive way because an android app could be downloaded also by other android phone users (and in a second time also by other OS). But using the Fairphone as a main device you can reach firstly interested users.
So the app is not a common social network app, it’s something that has ecommerce features but more devoted to purchasing by group than on an individual level. A sort of online Community supported agricolture.
First of all, I am not involved in any of such groups. And I doubt that I am the only one, who is not.
Secondly, isn’t Fair Trade an organization? As far as I know, Fairphone is not affiliated with the Fair Trade organization, FP only wants to implement Fair Trade gold in their product. Also I thought that Fair Trade is about going to a store individually and buying products, which come from developing countries.
I think the definition, we should use in the context, @MarcoGiustini is talking about, is Collaborative Economy…?
I could imagine a network, where someone e.g. indicates he/she wants flour. It can be bought in 50kg bags, but the individual only needs 10kg, so in the network he/she asks, if someone else needs the remaining 40kg, or parts of it. The transaction is not carried out until there are enough people to buy the 50kg bag.
I like the idea of
It does not relate to the vision of the network though because the network we are talking about is not about FP, but about group orders of goods. Maybe there is another use for fairpho.net…
however, I think FP would need to pick this up and implement this as a standard app for their users in order to make it work. as seen in the CM thread, their emphasis on the software side of the FP project seems to have weakened.
Youre right, there are many many social Apps out there, which enable us to socially connect to each other. But I think it is a difference if theres an actual Fairphone-Network that runs on Smartphones and is easy to use! Because as MarcoGiustini said, it’d be the connection of rather conscious people with at least very often the same ideas of consumerism, behaviour and global rebonsibility. So all the happy Fairphone owners being able to directly connect to each other would have great potential for the whole Fairphone-Movement I think.
And it gives the act of getting a Fairphone an additional social motivation, which I think is cool… =)
