Definition: waycaster

• For sellers, a waycaster is a means to achieve strong internet presence at no cost rather than through agencies that offer such presence only to those who buy their brokerage or other commercial services.
• For buyers, a waycaster is a way to identify a range of sellers and interact with each directly rather than through an agency or broker.
• For social scientists, a waycaster is a reformative social movement to prevent economic returns from small businesses being subsumed by big business, agencies and brokers that dominate internet search results.
• For economists, a waycaster is a form of co-opetition.
• For communities, a waycaster is a collaborative community action.
• For computer scientists, a waycaster is a directory website.
• For webmasters, a waycaster is time-consuming to establish but needs only ad-hoc maintenance thereafter.

1. A search phrase that unambiguously defines a niche market.
2. A simple website that does not require regular maintenance.
3. A small community of specialist producers or service providers of a closely-defined product or service, each of whom has a website.
4. Clear rules, so participants are represented at a similar level of detail.
5. Limited scope to expand, as unlimited growth potential makes free services unworkable.
6. Sufficient participants to become a popular destination that peforms well in searches because users find high-quality, concise, relevant content.

1. A search phrase: "staithes cottage"
2. A simple website: staithes.net with links to websites of cottage owners, not agencies.
3. A small community: accommodation providers in a single village
4. Clear rules: four defined images and 60 characters of text each.
5. Limited capacity to expand: a village.
6. Sufficient participants: not yet - it's new.

• 'Waycaster' might become the social buzzword of 2024.
• Or it might not. We'll see!

Version:09 Jan 2024