There are people that collect just about everything, even business cards. This makes transparency the world’s best gallery where people of all interests can meet and exchange experiences, goods and services. The world’s most beat up car can become a classic on the internet and companies built on transparency such as eBay , can help find someone who will appreciate just such a car.

At eBay, customers see all the way into each other’s living rooms to meet as sellers and buyers. How far into a company can your customers see and how far are they prepared to go? Could eBay.com take the next step into that living room and offer consumers bar codes to put on the possessions? Or what if you took the next step and developed a digital camera that could read barcodes and connected it with a site accessed by 100 million homes. If 10% of the site users uploaded 10 products, eBay would have 10,000,000 “barcode sale” products. Whatever you’re looking for it, you can be sure that you’ll find it there. And when you search, it will be like knocking on each other’s doors only that all the door will have EBay on them.

What effect would the visible consumer have on story-telling and sales? Would it “feed the story” or get PR? What if someone could place an eBay barcode in the White House? Storytelling and sales?

Put a barcode on ten things in your home that you might consider selling if you got the right offer. What would that offer be? After all, you’re not planning to hang onto that furniture (that you were tired of years ago) for the rest of your life? When you come right down to it: isn’t just about everything you own for sale if the price is right?
P.S. Don’t put a barcode on the dog.

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