Definition: waycaster
A waycaster is a non-commercial website that pairs buyers and sellers of scarce niche products or services for which individual sellers are too small to achieve significant online presence.
Features:
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For sellers, a waycaster is a means to achieve strong internet presence at no cost rather than through agencies that offer such presence only to those who buy their brokerage or other commercial services.
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For buyers, a waycaster is a way to identify multiple sellers and interact directly rather than through an agency or broker.
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For social scientists, a waycaster is a reformative social movement to prevent economic returns from small businesses being subsumed by big business, agencies and brokers that dominate internet search results.
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For economists, a waycaster is a form of co-opetition.
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For communities, a waycaster is a collaborative community action.
For computer scientists, a waycaster is a directory website.
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For webmasters, a waycaster is time-consuming to establish but needs only ad-hoc maintenance thereafter.
Design characteristics of a waycaster:
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A search phrase that unambiguously defines a niche market.
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A simple website that does not require regular maintenance.
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A small community of specialist producers or service providers of a closely-defined product or service, each of whom has a website.
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Clear rules, so participants are represented at a similar level of detail.
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Limited capacity to expand, as unlimited growth potential makes free services unworkable.
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Sufficient participants to become a popular destination that peforms well in searches because users find relevant content and a choice of suppliers.
History
The first waycaster was established on January 1st 2024.
Design characteristics of the first waycaster:
- A search phrase: "staithes cottage"
- A simple website: staithes.net with links to websites of cottage owners, not agencies.
- A small community: accommodation providers in a single village
- Clear rules: four defined images and 60 characters of text each.
- Limited capacity to expand: a village.
- Sufficient participants: 11
Impact:
- The concept is proven - a search phrase like "rent a cottage at Staithes from owner" typically finds staithes.net in a prominent position.
- The term "waycaster" might become a popular social buzzword as a vehicle for redistribution of market power away from big business back to local entrepreneurs.
Contact
You are most welcome to get in touch - email@waycaster.com.
© waycaster.com.
You are permitted to reproduce this text if you attribute it to waycaster.com
Version:03 Dec 2024