The “hacktivist” group Anonymous, which took down various government and media sites last week in protest of Megaupload’s takedown and arrests has a new site in its crosshairs, Facebook.

In a video posted today, Anonymous says that it fully intends on bringing down the social networking giant on January 28th at 12 AM:

Our first target… Facebook… While it is true that facebook has at least 60,000 servers… It is still possible to bring it down

While I can appreciate any effort that can bring thousands together to make an important voice heard on the war against maintaining our freedom on the Internet, I have to say that this latest effort seems more like trash-talking than it does a real meaningful campaign.

With very few people understanding what actually went on with the Megaupload case, which was two years in the making, Anonymous was able to take advantage of those who wanted to belong to something, anything. While I don’t condone the attacks on government websites, it was definitely a campaign to remember, and it left a lasting impression on those who supported proposed acts like SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. Basically, the message from Anonymous was heard loud and clear.

However, I’m going to go out on a ledge and say there are many reasons why these latest efforts from Anonymous are not only misguided, but have no chance of becoming a reality.

60,000 servers and quite a few hackers

You have to remember that Facebook has a culture of hacking. The notion of “hackatons” at the company aren’t just for show or feature films, its developers and engineers eat, sleep, and dream code. When you have a culture that understands the guts of engineering, you must assume that Facebook have thought of what to do in the event of a DDoS attack.

Facebook has been building its infrastructure to near-perfection since Mark Zuckerberg started coding it himself from a dorm room in 2004 and has hired his staff to do the same ever since. In April 2011, we wrote about how the company employs security-minded people for things just like this:

To protect itself from possible compromise, Facebook employs internal whitehats to continually probe and test the security of its website. Engineers constantly monitor data, keeping an eye on machine crashes and look to see if user trends change, working to push out priority fixes with hours. On a typical day, engineers will push numerous updates each day, submitting feature additions/fixes with varying urgency levels.

No real reason

Unlike the attacks on government websites like justice.gov, there is no real battle cry for people to join the ranks of Anonymous and carry out an attack like this. Watch the video below and see if you can find anything like the takedown of Megaupload that Anonymous can use to fuel any potential fire and angst against Facebook:

Back on November 5th of last year, many thought that Anonymous would make an attempt to bring down Facebook, but that turned out to be not the case. The reason was that not all members of Anonymous agreed on the attack, most likely because there was no real reason to carry one out.

This latest threat appears to have one battle cry; “Let’s do it because we can”. Well, nobody can in my opinion.

People actually like Facebook

In five days, Anonymous hopes to find enough people to carry out this hollow attack on Facebook. The only problem is that Facebook has over 800 million global members. It’s very unlikely that it could find enough people to even make a dent on Facebook’s “60,000″ servers, let alone bring them to a standstill or halt them entirely.

Asking users to attack Facebook is like asking them to punch their mother in the face, why would you hurt something that means so much to you? Facebook is a lifeline of communication for many, so the idea of bringing it down is absurd, even if it was possible. There just aren’t enough people who hate Facebook enough to download a tool and waste their time just to say that they did it.

By the time the Megaupload arrests went down, people were already hot and bothered over SOPA, with Wikipedia and Google making a huge stance against the proposed act. Basically, the timing and targets set forth by Anonymous were a perfect storm. This time, not so much.

It won’t happen

In the age where an act like SOPA comes so close to being a bill, I would say that any group who is willing to pull themselves together on behalf of a larger section of the world should be applauded. The attacks against federal websites were against the law though, so it’s a bit difficult to support a group in breaking the law at a large scale when it’s fighting something it sees to be unjust.

As long as there is an Internet though, there will be people who see these types of actions as defensible, therefore Anonymous isn’t going anywhere. In this case, the group leaves itself open to be questioned for its determination to protect other Internet users, especially when it wants to attack something that people genuinely rely on. This latest threat appears to be an empty one, and even if it’s not, it will turn out to be empty when all is said and done.

Thanks to a company called SpinningHat, you can forever memorialize your favorite profile design forever. Or as many times as you plan on taking a shower.

The “Social Shower Curtain” will set you back $23, but it’s worth it for the “lol” factor. Plus, it’s retro already, isn’t it?

The unauthorized Facebook shower curtain comes complete with a transparent window where your profile picture would normally go. If someone dares to enter the bathroom during your morning splash-session, they’ll be able to check your status in real-time. The shower curtain is set to ship in February.

Let’s hope Facebook doesn’t plan on suing like Apple is over the Steve Jobs doll.

➤ Social Shower Curtain

As you know, there is no quick way to share Google+ posts on any other social network. It’s the type of feature that used to drive traffic back to popular conversation engine FriendFeed before it was purchased by Facebook.

In the same way that FriendFeed was a great place to have a full cohesive conversation, Google+ lets you chat with people in real-time without being as fractured and incoherently assembled of an experience as replying to people on Twitter can be.

What Google+ lacks in features, third-party developers are more than making up for with extensions and add-ons for Google’s web browser, Chrome.

One handy Chrome extension is called Extended Share for Google Plus, and it does exactly what it sounds like it does.

Bat signal +

Starting a conversation on Google+ and sharing that link on other social networks is kind of like sending a bat signal out to your friends and followers, asking them to come to a place where “chatting” is better supported.

When you install this Google+ Chrome Extension, you’ll notice that a new “Share On” button pops up next to the existing share button that simply lets you share someone’s Google+ post on your stream.

Now you can send out any Google+ post link to a slew of services including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tumblr, Posterous, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon. The preferences for Extended Share let you choose the services you’d like to see show up when you click “Share On” within Google+.

While sharing Google+ links could annoy your Facebook and Twitter friends, it is quite useful if you’re really looking to generate a worthwhile discussion about the topic you’ve posted about. I’ve found that Google+ beats out most services for group conversations, and while the comment system isn’t threaded like it should be, it’s extremely easy to follow a real-time conversation on the service.

While this is a feature that the Google+ team could easily integrate into the service, it’s best left to third-party developers to figure out what services should be included in such a sharing list.

➤ Extended Share for Google Plus

With Facebook’s Timeline coming “Soon”, according to project managers at Facebook, there will be many new things for you to take notice of once it becomes live.

We know that there are all new things to “worry” about when it comes to who sees what on your Facebook profile, but the company will be asking you to worry about what you’re sharing even more by asking you to add “Life Events” to the service.

What are those suggested life events you ask?

They’re broken up into five sections: Work and Education, Family and Relationships, Living, Health and Wellness, and Milestones and Experiences. At first glance, this seems pretty reasonable considering that Facebook is made up of your friends and family for the most part.

After a deeper dive, some of the optional life events seem like over sharing, and shows off Facebook’s insatiable taste for more and more of your data.

Got a piercing or Tattoo?

Facebook seems to be primed to be the digital scrapbook of your entire life with its Timeline product. The layout is quite gorgeous, and even though it can be a bit confusing on why it displays the data that it does and where, it’s definitely a visual upgrade from your current profile.

However, in the status box, you’ll notice the “Life Event” tab.

Adding life events are completely optional of course, but it will be very interesting to see how many people actually dig down deep in their past and share everything that has ever happened to them.

For example, one health and wellness life event asks you to enter any past illnesses.

Even though I very publicly fought cancer myself, I was a bit hesitant to enter this information in. I’m not worried about who sees it as much as I’m interested in how the company will use it. Could they use the data to advertise to me directly? Absolutely. But what else is possible with all of that information about one person. Only Facebook truly knows.

Here are some of the more interesting suggested life events for you to enter into the site’s database:

Some of them seem rather benign and silly like “Got a Piercing or Tattoo”, but then you’ll notice ones like “Changed Beliefs” and “Lost a loved one” which seem creepy to even ask for. I personally would not enter that information into anyones database, let alone a social network’s.

Yes, there are privacy controls on each other, and you could enter these things for only your eyes to see, but it’s kind of disturbing to think that people might be adding these very personal events into a public platform.

There are “Other” options along the bottom of each section, which lets you add your own life event in any category. At what point is this to be considered over sharing, though? Do we really want Facebook to be the one place that has all of our information, past and present? Adding all of this past activity could take hours upon hours, and I’m wondering how many will actually dedicate the time to this.

Will you add the dates of ended relationships, piercing additions, instruments you learned to play, and more once Timeline is released to everyone? Tell us in the comments.

Big markets seem to always have three or four major players. The top wireless carriers are AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Music has the big four record labels with Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, EMI, and Warner Music Group.

Mobile operating systems have a big three too. It’s Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft.

Apple has a bit of a lead in the cell phone market, and the iPhone 4S has been the biggest seller for the top wireless carriers. Google has gained huge steam with its open-source Android operating system.

The battle for “social” has three big players too; Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. The companies behind them? You guessed it. Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

The future of mobile

Instead of talking about the future of mobile, you could make the argument that mobile is the future of everything. We’re making big purchases using our phone, interacting with the people we care about the most, along with everything else that really matters.

The future of mobile relies on how advanced operating systems can become. Apple’s iOS makes us think in terms of “apps”, which is becoming an old software way of thinking. Developers are starting to call the UI “Boxy”. Apple will have to evolve its OS to allow apps to speak to each other seamlessly without having to flip back and forth between them to connect and share information.

Android has a huge opportunity to capitalize on what Apple’s missing. Since the OS is open source, there are smart developers everywhere working on pushing the envelope outside of what Google could ever imagine or come up with itself.

And then there’s Microsoft. The latest Windows Phones running Mango are focused on social interactions. Live tiles bring your phone to life in ways that make Apple’s iOS feel stale and boring. It used to be a game of how much data you could get onto a mobile device, but now it’s more about how that data gets displayed.

These three companies will push each other to build the mobile experience around people and their daily lives. Watching YouTube videos in the palm of my hand simply isn’t impressive anymore.

The future of social

Microsoft should have an edge here, because of its involvement and investment in Facebook. Creating the best Facebook experience should be an area that Windows Phones can own. Unfortunately, they don’t own it. Even though Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t come to terms with Apple on building a partnership, the best experience for Facebook is on Apple’s iDevices. There are 800 million users there, so building the best Facebook experience would be a good idea for Microsoft.

Apple decided to bet on Twitter, integrating it deeply within iOS 5. So far, I haven’t seen any runaway uses of Twitter built into an operating system, other than being able to tweet something quicker than before. Twitter isn’t the future of social at all, it’s just a component.

And then we have Google and Google+. Google not only owns the OS, they own the social service. For Microsoft and Apple, they aren’t afforded that type of control. If Google truly is focusing on social, they can make the best sharing and interaction experience just by owning both the OS and the social service.

Unfortunately, the Android version of Google+ still feels stand-alone and not integrated into the phone. Perhaps the next version of Android’s OS will fix that. Jelly Bean, anyone?

Who will win?

Since Facebook has the advantage in social with its 800 million mainstream users, Microsoft better get its act together fast. The “Me” section of its Windows Phone OS is a glimpse into the future of social on the go. Updates and replies from all services are blended together into one personalized stream. From that stream you can interact with those people via text or phone call.

People will drive the future mobile and social experience, not apps. Therefore, we all win. All three companies will start focusing its experiences around interactions with people, not the services those people use.

Apple, you have your two strong competitors, it’s time to show us one more thing.

We have quite a few options to share our lives in the form of streams of information these days. With Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and pretty much every other social service out there, we’re used to entering things into an empty box for the world to see.

LifeKraze wants to take a different angle with the stream, and prompt us a bit differently. The site asks you “What have you done?”, meaning, what have you done to inspire or help someone or something else. It sounds a little altruistic at first, but once you get into it, it’s a nice departure from rambling incessantly on Twitter.

What LifeKraze does is make you think before you speak, and then lets the community reward you for it.

I spoke to LifeKraze team member Jonathan Yagel, about the service and here’s what he told me:

TNW: What was missing in personal streams like Twitter that made you want to create LifeKraze?

Jonathan Yagel: If Twitter is what you say, and Facebook is who you are, then LifeKraze is what you do. We love these other services, but the focus on networks has in some ways displaced the emphasis on individual, “real world” actions. We wanted to create a platform that isn’t just focused on the current moment (“What’s happening?”) but, rather, something that inspires people around what they could and should be doing. We’re making the move from sharing experiences to facilitating action.

TNW: Rewards keep people interested, do you see a lot of return engagement on the site? Can you give us any usage numbers?

Jonathan Yagel: We certainly see spikes in usage when new rewards are released, so we’re working on establishing more partnerships and offering those on a more steady basis. But right now the biggest draw—what people say keeps them coming back—is the positive community. We’ve already heard some amazing stories about people whose lives have been changed by being part of uplifting atmosphere—we constantly get feedback saying “I’m able to share things on LifeKraze that I just wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing on Facebook… people there would either laugh at me or be annoyed.” People are looking for encouragement and we’re proud to be a place where they can consistently find it.

Most users spend about 6–8 minutes per visit and our mobile web page is even higher. Around 8–10.

TNW: Tell us about your team and why you came together to build lifekraze

Jonathan Yagel: We’re young, hungry, and foolish. We have 10 people, averaging 23.9 years of age. The original three founders were college soccer players, who joined forces last year, straight off of graduation, to provide everyone with the benefits of the teams they found on the field. You can listen to Michael telling the story on SoundCloud here. One of the big things he talks about is being in Chattanooga, TN—it’s not your typical hub, but that’s okay because we don’t view ourselves primarily as being a “tech startup.” Most of us aren’t from here (I was working for a nonprofit in Brazil before this), but we’re looking to build communities and share inspiration, and it’s awesome getting feedback in a part of the country where most people don’t use Twitter—we love introducing people to the real potential of social media.

TNW: Do you see charities and non-profit organizations getting on the platform to reward people for social good?

Jonathan Yagel: Absolutely! That’s actually the biggest project that I, personally, am working on—I was at a Social Good Summit in NYC last month, just lapping up what other people are doing and looking for ways that we can connect these kinds of organizations to what we’ve built. Right now I’m looking at ways that they could get plugged into the point system, but also how our users could donate their points to these kinds of groups (Donation by Action, FTW!). I’m still working it out, but LifeKraze has always been about giving and I’m excited to provide new ways for our users to contribute directly to great causes.

TNW: What features are you working on adding in the near future?

Jonathan Yagel: Our focus right now is really native app development, which we’re doing in-house. Community often happens at home (the desktop) but action often takes place outside of it (mobile devices), so we realize that both components are important. We’re looking forward to bringing a LifeKraze experience to the phone that is simple and intuitive while keeping the core that people love. We’re also working on deeper integration with other platforms and apps, as well as a “LifeKraze store” where users can redeem points for products directly through LK, rather than having to take discount codes to third-party locations.

Lofty expectations, which is what it takes to be succesful on the web. But does LifeKraze have enough to keep us interested?

Life is like a box of chocolates

The part about LifeKraze that stood out to me immediately was that I didn’t know anyone who was using the service. It made using the site easier, and showed the power of listening to what others are up to, and then giving them some kudos for their life achievements. You can enter your achievements or thoughts, just as you’d do on a service like Twitter.

Things from running a mile, to helping an old lady shop at the supermarket are the types of things you can expect to see in the stream, which is broken up by “Friends”, “Everyone”, and “Rookies”.

Of course, the site lets you tie-in your Facebook, Twitter, and Google accounts if you’d like to invite your friends too. I highly suggest spending some time on LifeKraze before that, though.

Rewards and high-fives

While something like LifeKraze could turn into people seeking constant praise for every little thing that they do, there are features that allow the community to bubble up those who really deserve the attention.

When you sign up for LifeKraze, you’re given 200 points. You can use those points to redeem rewards, or share the points with others for a job well done. It’s a bit of a currency, but it’s not too involved to the point where you can’t wrap your head around it.

When you see something in the stream you’d like to reward, you simply click the reward button and assign as many points as you’d like. There are also lighter weight interactions like “High-five” and favorite. All of these things are fed back into LifeKraze to build a leaderboard of awesome people and actions.

The points that you collect can be redeemed for offers from partners such as Reebok and Powerade. That’s a pretty impressive group of early partners for LifeKraze.

In a world where people are being judged by random scores based on what we tweet, who shares what we tweet, and how many people click on a tweet, it’s nice to see a service with a little heart step into the fray. Allowing people to share their brightest accomplishments and thoughts is important. Fortunately, the things you’ll see on LifeKraze are the tweets we lose in our huge streams daily.

In a video dating back to June 2005, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg discusses the mission of “The Facebook”.

Zuckerberg describes the early iteration of Facebook as an “ice breaker”, and an “online directory for colleges” that’s “kind of interactive”.

Early on, you can tell that Zuckerberg is interested in, and almost obsessed with, collecting information and data about Facebook users. He shared during the interview:

I realized that because I didn’t have people’s information like a school would in making a face book, I needed to make it interesting enough so that people would want to use the site and put their information up

It’s pretty amazing how relaxed and focused Zuckerberg is, and that focus has stayed with the company all the way through to a growth of over 800 million users. Facebook’s plan was laid out before us in 2006 as the young CEO describes in this interview:

Part of making a difference and doing something cool is focusing intensely

Mark Zuckerberg will be visiting colleges on the East coast starting November 8th, including Harvard University, where ‘The Facebook’ started.

When you ask someone what a “Social Network” is, their reply will probably be “Facebook”. We’re familiar with the experience on Facebook, you have to sign up using your real identity. In fact, if you use a fake one, you risk being kicked off. Twitter doesn’t require your real name, but the people who use Twitter the most tend to.

Anybeat doesn’t want to replace Facebook or Twitter, it just wants to be a place for you to hang out, be yourself, and communicate with interesting people.

The layout of the site is simple, and easy to use. You can post things into a stream ala Twitter, with links and pictures if you’d like. You can also navigate the site through “groups”, which bring in real-time streaming content and conversations that are going on within AnyBeat. The topics cover anything from Business to Technology. You can of course create your own group and make it public or private.

Other interesting and unique features of AnyBeat to note here:

You are given a reputation score as you use AnyBeat, so if the community thinks you’re a pain, then your score will reflect it

Most social networks don’t have an open directory of all users. AnyBeat does, and it wants you to go through it and find new people to meet

Rangers are managers of the AnyBeat community who watch out for anything that’s not nice

The company, which includes founders such as ex-MySpace employee Dmitry Shapiro, says this about AnyBeat:

Unlike Facebook, Twitter, or Google +, we DON’T want to be your global online identity or login to other sites. Therefore, we DON’T follow you across the web, or collect any information about your web browsing habits outside of Anybeat. On that same note, we DON’T log/record any of your Instant Messaging conversations.

What AnyBeat offers is the freedom to be yourself without having to worry about your boss finding out what you’re saying. Since you might not know anyone on the service, you’ll be more open to actually reading in the content and participating. Perhaps you will make a few new online or offline friends.

I interviewed CMO (Chief Morality Officer) John Halcyon Styn, an online community pioneer, about AnyBeat today:

TNW: Why is anonymity still important to protect online?

Halycon: First it is important to distinguish between anonymity and psuedonymity We believe it is important to have an online identity with a reputation that you are accountable for. But it is also important to have that identity be totally separate from the public identify you use on Facebook, your professional and family lives.

How can we ever explore controversial ideas if we are always worried about our words being searchable forever? How can we ever stretch and grow as people if we fear the consequences of standing out or being different. And that extends beyond personal growth into societal growth, too. Could a banker speak in favor of #occupywallstreet on Facebook without fear of professional consequences? Transparency is a beautiful idea for many things… but not all things.

TNW: When did you get started online, what was your first big hit as far as a Community?

Halcyon: My first big online community experience was being the community lead for the 4 million member collegeclub.com in 1999. It was the Facebook of it’s time…way before it’s time. Then in 2000 I started another community with Dmitry Shapiro called CitizenX that was webcam based and Burning Man-influenced. It was there that I started doing Hug Nation – a weekly live moment of connection. Hug Nation continues to this day and has been my most rewarding online experience. Immediately previous to Anybeat, both Dmitry & I were at MySpace.

TNW: What do you see missing on Twitter/Facebook/Google+ that still has mass appeal needs

Halcyon: The big existing social networks are wonderful tools. But they fail to help me 1) meet new people and 2) Have deep, vulnerable conversations in a safe, supportive environment.

Moving forward, we hope to work on the bugs, add features, and pay very close attention to what people using the site are saying. The conversations have been amazing, the suggestions insightful. We just need to work as fast as possible to allow this place to become what it wants to be. :) The challenge for me will be: Can we maintain this awesome vibe as we grow?

TNW: When are you launching publicly?

Halcyon: I’m not sure the exact launch date, but if the bug squashing goes well, in 3-4 weeks.

TNW: Has AnyBeat received funding at this point?

Halcyon: Our first round of financing info: http://blog.altly.com/2011/06/altly-seed-financing/

The company has an uphill battle as far as getting people to spend all of their time on AnyBeat, but it appears as if that’s not the mission. The mission is to have a place where different people can be different together. And that’s an experience, that’s well…different.

In fact, one of the things that inspired AnyBeat was this quote from Henry David Thoreau:

If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the sound of a different drum.

If you’d like to join AnyBeat, we have 100 invites for The Next Web readers.

Twitter just published a great blog post promoting #longreads, a hash tag that provides more in-depth context and content than 140 characters can ever provide. By searching #longreads, you’ll find tweeted suggestions of long articles and short stories by studious fans of great journalism and long form writing.

Twitter suggests the following related accounts to consider following if #longreads strikes your fancy:

@longreads: Run by the creator of the hashtag, this account shares the most popular articles and credits whoever surfaced it.
@somethingtoread: Shares select essays and articles that have been saved on @instapaper
@ifyouonly: If you only have time to read one thing…
@longformorg: Shares long-form reads from the past and present.
@sportsfeat: A companion to the account above but devised specifically for sports features.

If you’re a fan of long reads, highly recommend you stay tuned to TNW on the weekends where we run a series of editorial magazine length pieces about particular topics. Some of my personal favorites: WordPress, the free software with the big economy, What is the Technological Singularity?, How the Internet is Revolutionizing Education and The Rise of The Mobile Social Network.

We also suggest you check out LongReads.com, a wonderful site that hands picks some of the finest long reads on the web. It’s also worth noting Instapaper provides a similar service.

Today, a new site called “Most Interesting People in the Room” launches as a new, incentivized way for highly intellectual and curious people to communicate, forum style on the Internet. The site’s founder, serial entrepreneur Colin Wright, explains the inspiration behind his new site:

“I was in Thailand on an island with a group of friends. We had this great night on the beach getting into these semi-drunken discussions. While everyone experiences these kinds of conversations, with certain people those discussions get taken up a notch and life changing ideas are put into your head. It was one of those nights, and I thought, I have a lot of these kinds of nights because I travel and am able to meet people; instead of just having Twitter conversations or Skype calls, I can have a deeper exchange of ideas.

The concept for Most Interesting People in the Room came from trying to take those deeper connections with people and put it on the Internet. Because, unfortunately now on the Internet people dumb down what they want to say; most newspapers are on a 5th grade reading level. We needed a site for trend-setting, future thinking people. A place where people won’t care if you sound too lofty; a place for you to be as intelligent and interesting and forward thinking as possible. Just be prepared to be challenged and don’t be afraid if someone debates with you; they’re targeting your idea not you.”

Wright first launched The Most Interesting People in the Room (MIPitR) in October 2010, but had to put the project on the back-burner while he and his co-founder Andrew Elkins rebuilt it. In order to maintain platform autonomy, Andrew took a template from Software Xenforo, tore out the insides and rebuilt the site to address their particularly payment system needs and better tools for more user interaction.

Here’s how that works:

Anyone can read the blog and the forums for free. They can even make a profile within the forum, they just can’t participate in the discussion.

A paid membership is $10/month, and this allows you to get down and dirty in the trenches, interacting with other users, send messages, award points, etc. Colin says, “It makes you a full citizen of MIPitR, while the non-paying folk are Puerto Rico (able to benefit from the site, but they have no real voice).”

Topics for the blog are determined within the forum, where members can award other members with points for their commentary. Each week, MIPitR looks at the posts and comments with the most points, as well as the new entries in the ‘Blog Proposals’ room, where members can pitch blog ideas directly.

At the end of each month MIPitR tallies up the money that comes in from memberships, and then each week they check out the posts in the forum and the blog pitches (in a forum section made expressly for the purpose) that received the most points. They then choose one of the options presented, and ask an author a week to write a post. The payment for that post will be 10% of the total income from the previous month.

Why it’s smart

In a time when sites are having trouble getting their readers engaged, a reward system a la Foursquare for readers seems to be a good approach, for now. Colin fears that awarding points for Likes and Comments will not be enough, which is where he sees the monetary system literally paying off. The membership fee also creates a desired barrier to entry to keep trolls out. In addition, since the payment system is on a sliding scale, it creates incentive for users to bring more people into the forum. In the future, Colin says they might take on sponsors but for now the idea is to pay to get as much new content created as possible.

The idea is to innovate in the forum layout and Andrew, whom Colin met while playing Ultimate Frisbee in college, happens to build softwares that builds forums. I asked Colin, “Is this the future of forums, perhaps a new kind of journalism?”

To which he responded,

“I don’t think anybody really knows what the future of this discussion is going to be. People are fed up with commenting systems; I very seldom leave comments anymore. MIPitR is an experiment to figure out what we can do to make it easier for people to have these long from conversations on the Internet, to figure out what encourages people to have these conversations. So much of the “conversation” online today is the equivalent of yelling, “FIRST”, and then saying “Hey, good idea!” So, how do we encourage better comments? Is it with badges and trophies? Or do we have to make it financially viable?”

Who knows what the future may hold, but Most Interesting People in the Room is certainly an intriguing and potentially viable experiment in ”unapologetically intellectual discourse” on the Internet. Finally, in case you don’t know much about Colin, we’ve written about him before when his indie publishing platform EBookling sold 1,000 e-books in two weeks.

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Colin (from his introductory blog post on MIPitR):

1. I’m a serial entrepreneur and full-time traveler.
2. I move to a new country every 4 months based on the votes of my readers.
3. While I travel, I run a handful of businesses and projects from my laptop, which is also how I fund my lifestyle.
4. Before I started traveling, I ran a successful branding studio in Los Angeles and lived in a two-story townhouse on the Westside.
5. I own 54 things in the whole world.
6. I write about all kinds of things over at ExileLifestyle.com.
7. I’m passionate about learning and experiencing new things. This is a big part of why I live the way I do.
8. I’m left-handed.
9. I actively try to figure out, evolve and live according to my personal philosophies and ethic code. I’m also shocked at how few people seem to do this.
10. I’ve been offered a TV show 3 times by 3 different studios. All of the ideas sucked.

Colin says: head over to the new site and check out the forum, make yourself a profile, play around a bit. And also, follow @mipitr on Twitter.