| Website | hubculture.com |
| @hubculture | |
| Category | Other |
| Employees | 20 |
| Founded | 11/02 |
| Description | Physical Social Network |
Hub Culture is a social network service that is the first to merge online and physical world environments. The company operates the first physical locations to trade entirely in Ven, a virtual currency, and operates Ven as a digital micropayment platform for content, groups, products, services and events.
It was founded in November 2002. The Hub Culture group of companies is privately held with offices in Bermuda, Copenhagen, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and Singapore. Dedicated representatives are in over 60 locations worldwide. The site has been noted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, PSFK, Springwise, Trendhunting, GDR, and other trend related websites.
In 2008, Hub Culture began rolling out Pavilions, member based workspaces in key cities that offer concierge and consulting services, meeting space, and online collaboration tools on an internet based technology platform. Hub Culture Pavilions, both temporary and permanent, have appeared in London, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Ibiza, Cannes and Miami.
As of January 2011, Hub Culture lists over 25,000 members and has exchanged over 3 million units of its virtual currency, Ven. Members create profiles with tags tied to areas of expertise and knowledge, sharing information to help others in the network with business related activities. Members build working groups to manage collaborative projects with wikis, file sharing, discussions and event planning, or exchange the virtual currency to acknowledge favors and benefits that come from the sharing of information.
Ven is a virtual currency used by members of Hub Culture to buy, share and trade knowledge, goods and services with anyone in the network and can be spent at any Hub Culture Pavilion. The currency is currently linked to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 10 Ven to the dollar and trades against other major currencies at floating exchange rates. Ven first appeared as an application in Facebook on 4 July, 2007.
In late 2008, the Ven became tradeable to anyone with an email address, making it the first global digital currency to move from an online social network into the real world. In November 2009, Ven expanded as an online micropayment platform for content and group subscriptions, creating a new economic model for online paid journalism with single click micropayment options down to the fraction of a cent, and earn/pay options that can be used for multiple content forms. In January 2010 the currency moved away from its 10 to 1 dollar peg, effectively floating against a basket of currencies and commodities tracked online in real time.
By the end of 2009 hundreds of services and items (ranging from private jet service to juice) were available in Ven at Hub Culture Pavilions - the first physical locations in the world to operate entirely on a virtual currency.
In 2010 Ven added Carbon to its basket components, alongside multiple currencies and commodities, making it the first green currency, with a theoretical carbon offset attached to each transaction. Its stability in the international markets has made Ven an attractive pricing option in the commodities sector, where phsyical trades for goods priced in Ven are now taking place on a bespoke exchange platform created by the company.
| Website | vencurrency.org |
| Stage | Live |
| Launch Date | July 4, 2007 |
