Safeworlds Patent Publication number WO1998057285 A1

Data processing system for integrated tracking and management of commerce related activities on a public access network 

WO 1998057285 A1

ABSTRACT

A data processing system manages transaction-related information generated on a network of interconnected public or private access computers, including monitoring purchases and providing referral fee accounting based thereon. The integrated software package establishes a platform for Merchants (40) and Site Owners (20) for managing the negotiation of promotional and commercial contracts, the implementation of resulting promotional and commerical efforts, and final accounting in accordance with pre-established criteria. The present invention thus enables network users (10) to take advantage of a retail sales channel on public or private electronic networks.

My comments:
The above Patent appears to have been lodged in 1998, in 1998 the above platform would have been applicable because as the patent application states there were no systems in place to offer payment processing and transactional security.

Now in 2016 the internet has developed into a huge commerce and retail ecosystem, there were some breakthrough technologies that were founded and productized fast enough to take advantage of the internet. Its also human nature to want choice from vendors and transaction methods.

Payment Processing
Paypal, founded in 1998, in 2000 decided to focus on monetary transactions. Paypal was IPO'd and went public in 2002. Subsequently Paypal was purchased by eBay for US$1.5 billion in July 2002.
In 2015 Paypal had revenues of US$9.24 billion, whats important here is that the period of time from deciding on payment processing to IPO is 2 years. Paypal does the heavy lifting of the financial transactions similar to part of the Patent above.


Fortunately for the public the Paypal transaction process is completely safe and it exists on the World Wide Web.

E commerce

eBay, founded in 1995, first president in 1996 and major growth had commenced by early 1997. In 1997 eBay had its first VC funding round of $6.7 million. In September 1998, eBay went public. The time between inception and IPO is 3 years.
eBay in 2015 has revenues of US$8.59 billion and provides a very significant volume of e commerce sales across the world.

Add to the list Amazon, Alibaba etc and the world has a system that works today very well. Its not to say that a platform like Safeworlds won't succeed but at present how can a platform that is hidden from the masses if they can find the URL, won't even run on Google Chrome (the number one browser world wide) as of the 27/5/2016.

The time required to take a company from inception to IPO is critical to its success, a company must make revenue and have customer growth to successfully IPO. If I'm wrong please leave me a comment and explain.