acquisition

From IndieWeb

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An acquisition within the IndieWeb is a type of post that enumerates purchases, gifts, donations, (stolen?!) and found things potentially with additional information like photos, descriptions, specifications, price paid, date/time acquired, location acquired from, and condition.

Why

  • Potentially useful as a form of self-accountability for acquiring material goods. Some people keep running lists or inventories of what they own as a means of limiting possessions. Public posts make ownership more conscious and conspicuous.
  • Can be useful for personal budgeting and feedback for review.
  • Could be useful for income tax preparation season.
  • Useful for looking up details while shopping to remember the type, price, or historical quantity of items one might be purchasing at present. Also for knowing whether you may already have a copy of a particular thing (like a book, DVD, baseball card, other) which is a member of a much larger personal collection thus making it more difficult to recall if you've got a particular item.
  • A collection of such posts could potentially be useful when creating a last will and testament, particularly when posts are about durable, long term goods.
  • Historical
    • In the past diarists often kept notations of purchases and/or entire inventories of the contents of their homes.
  • Compare with purging, donating e.g. http://tantek.com/2015/256/t1/purge-stuff-not-building-positive-future.

IndieWeb Examples

Tantek

Tantek Çelik has occasionally posted acquisition posts as notes since at least 2010-12-01

Rhiaro

  • Amy Guy has posted acquisitions since 2016-01-02 and keeps a running list at rhiaro's stuff.
  • They're stored and served as an ActivityStreams 2.0 extension: the Acquire Activity. Docs.
  • Called the posts "acquire[s] because it also includes gifts, donations, found things."

Anomalily

Chris Aldrich

Silo Examples

GoodReads

  • Goodreads has a checkmark field for "I own a copy of this book" with additional fields for "condition" "Original purchase location" and "original purchase date"
  • Backend UI for imputting ownership data

  • Note small indication of ownership placed on review pages that are publicly visible:

  • UI for ownership page of book, which is only viewable when logged in

Amazon

You Need a Budget (aka YNAB)

YouNeedABudget is a silo site and app that helps users more consciously create a budget and track their income and expenditures for a wide variety of reasons and purposes.

Venmo

  • Venmo keeps a running list of things you've both acquired as well as items you've been paid for. There are a variety of privacy settings to allow friends or others to see purchases publicly.

Everyday Carry

  • Every Day Carry is a social silo for sharing photos and details of products one carries with them on a daily basis. While not specifically an acquisition type post, it's somewhat related as it gives the impression of a conspicuous consumption site which appears to be primarily focused on knives, phones, watches, tools, pens, and pencils that people would carry in their pockets, briefcases, backpacks, and/or purses.

Untappd

Untappd is a drink-related social silo for sharing checkins to locations with beer specific consumption data and details including photos. For drinks purchased at particular locations it allows the user to fill in a purchased location based on Foursquare data.