Get a room
Since going live, Mingleverse says it has managed to get around 3,000 people to sign up for its service, with over 10,000 mingles within the first six weeks. That number is apparently close to doubling now, as people flock to the 30 or so room choices to have a little chat about church, or swine flu or even to speed date.
But of all the Mingles so far, Stevens says the teaching and training sessions have really stood out. "The expertise market has a lot of potential," he said, musing that it could one day become rather like eBay, except with the goods being ‘face to face' communication.
Another potential bonus for Minglers is that they can get tax credits by using Mingleverse to chart the number of carbon emissions saved by their virtual meetings. The way the system works is that Mingleverse knows the location of the Minglers, calculates the miles between them, and figures out how many carbon emissions it would take in the real world to get them to meet up.
In Canada, for example, a person can claim $25 of tax back for every metric tonne of carbon emissions saved. "People will find their use case for it," said Stevens, who was one of only six people to build the software along with co-founder Len Layton.
Currently, the service is free for Mingles of up to three people; a Mingle Room for up to 10 people costs nine dollars a month, 25 people is $19 a month, a 50-person venue is $29 a month and the site promises it will have 100-person Mingle Rooms coming.
"For us it is a generic way for people to get together and exchange brainpower," Stevens concluded. And a potentially lucrative exchange at that, we might add.
