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By Bozidar Spirovski
After the first article was posted at GenApple, which promotes itself as the first information brokerage, Shortinfosec secured an interview with the founder of GenApple -- Mr. Mark Hanson. In summary, the service will need polishing, and GenApple will need to tweak procedures and operating rules as they go along.
There may be security and privacy concerns -- we are sure that the law enforcement agencies will be very interested to peek into the information being traded, as well as who is trading it. Also, on the other side of the coin, the information brokerage may be a place where illegal information is traded, so GenApple will have to be very careful to walk the thin line between trading of illegal material and the pressure of law enforcement to know everything.
Bozidar: Let's start with the person behind the idea. As I saw from your LinkedIn profile, you are just 4 years out of university. Is this your first venture?
Mark John Hanson: Yes. This is my first start-up venture. But I had the idea for this site about a year and a half ago, and have been developing it since then. We're very excited about it. The team has been working very hard and we hope to deliver a quality service that people can use, enjoy and learn.
Bozidar: Could you describe the concept a bit more, of course in layman's terms? At first glance it sounds like eBay, but for bits and bytes.
Mark John Hanson: Sure. What we aspire to be is a place where people simply can buy and sell information and knowledge. At first glance, why would people pay for information or knowledge? The Internet is filled with free information, from search engines, to answer portals, to e-learning portals. However, something is missing.
Every person throughout their years acquires a lot of knowledge, some of it has little to no value. But every person has knowledge that they possess that another person may want -- in real life to gain this knowledge there might have to be a personal relation. But with our site we seek to create a marketplace where people for the first time can sell knowledge and information that another party may want and pay for.
Bozidar: So what you are promoting is compensation for knowledge that someone has and others require?
Mark John Hanson: Exactly. Right now there's lots of knowledge that is not being disclosed on the Internet because people feel it has value. For instance, there are things you are willing to blog about for free -- you write about security issues. However, you're a businessman and there are many other things that you have acquired over the course of your life that you know have real value.
We seek [to be] a place where you can sell such knowledge, both privately, if you want, and securely. Yes there are many answer sites, forums, etc., and for many questions, a free answer forum is good enough. However, we're not just an answer forum; we hope to be a place where a broad amount of knowledge is shared.
Bozidar: You touch on an excellent subject with the forums: There are commercial forums that offer some form of expert knowledge when you subscribe. These are usually quite technical and with specific target groups in mind. What is your target group?
Mark John Hanson: At the end we hope to be the destination for any or all type of knowledge; however, starting out, we'll focus on three verticals and expand from there.
- Stock tips and financial knowledge. We want to have a monetary focus when we start so people who have knowledge or advice about investment strategies can share. Because of U.S. securities regulation, we'll actively monitor these listings to make sure that inside information is not disclosed or sold.
- News freelance. Because of the nature of journalism in the U.S. there are many reporters who are currently unemployed or underemployed. What we want is for people who are journalists, citizen journalists and so on to have a place where they can sell news stories that they'll write and the news organ.
- Celebrity gossip and information. We wanted to have a fun and interesting vertical so people will check our site out and follow what is being disclosed on our launch.
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