Some Transparency Please

In light of recent events, such as Market Leader’s newest investment in Active Rain Corp. and other developments in Seattle, there has been one area of the company’s operations that has been been conveniently ignored, and it is for the reader to decide if this is oversight or clever obfuscation. But those of us who have been  rising in point totals over the years do deserve full disclosure from management. 

This morning, I passed the 666,000 point total when I logged in, making me 2/3 of the way toward Active Rain Millionaire status. For more information on your own points, if you don’t know already, I would direct the reader to click on 

ActiveRain.com>My Home> Point Total (in lower left sidebar). 

One has to wonder what the real value of our point total really is. 

When I first became active on this platform, Lenn Harley was the high point leader with something in the order of 700,000 points. There were no million point people, and 100,000 tallies were considered the “point affluent” if you will. There was no automatic 100 points for logging on, no contests to speak of, and you have to earn them the “hard way” but producing content in the form of a blog post or comment.

Today, we have what might be considered point inflation. You get points for logging on. For contests. For the best caption on a Facebook photo.  New Registrants get bonus points for their first blog and checking their score of all things. It is decadent.  It is a little known fact that I earned 15,000 points at the Atlantic City Raincamp for an event that will remain between myself, Gettysburg Gerry, and certain staff at Caesar’s. The less said the better. 

Moreover, the number of AR “millionaires” has exploded to almost half the first page of the leaderboard. 

Which leads me to the question: How are Nikesh, Market Leader, and other higher ups in management in Seattle accounting for the inflation of Active Rain points? Is it a zero sum model where point totals increase but the per unit value decreases? Or is it a “growing pie” where they are actually borrowing more points from a non domestic source, such as a foreign nation like China, creating a debt that membership cannot make good on? Are the points each backed by an infinitesimal scrap of silicon (and if so, where is it?), or are we to simply rely on the full faith and credit of ActiveRain Corp.? 

The changes in managment give me a grave concern about backroom deals on the matter or deliberate withholding of material information from membership. And what of insurance? We need to know that if we need our points, they are there and that they have equity. I hereby demand a transparent accounting from Active Rain Corp. on the points -our points- so that we can sleep at night.