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About malls & more

malls & more is a portal focused on:Help

Retail, Malls & Shopping Centre Development and this includes

                                                                      Leisure, Entertainment, Edutainment and more .....

We are here to provide Information & Networking to professionals working on, in and around these projects.

m & m has been set-up as a commercial service and with a growth strategy that will allow all members to participate in the success of this project.

The strategic development plan for m & m has a number of stages:

  1. alpha - Winter 2009 - Spring 2010
  2. Beta - Summer 2010 - 16.08.2010
  3. Full Release - reserved for the future

Who is who and doing what?

The m & m portal project is based on the work and ideas of Christian Cuhls, MD of sds-i.

The initial funding has been provided by a small, private group of individuals. Christian took on the role of CEO for mallsandmore.com and sds-i have been appointed as the IT consultant for the project earlier in 2009.

During the "alpha" and "Beta" stages of development and testing the management structure will be widened.

In parallel to the initial development during the "alpha" and "Beta" stages mallsandmore.com will progress to a corporate business and additional funding will be secured, though not before the autumn of 2010 at the earliest.

sds-i ltd are a UK based consultancy providing Strategic Development Services for developing shopping and entertainment projects internationally.

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Background and Philosophy

m & m is a members only site. There are plenty of networking sites around for social, business and entertainment uses. Their business model is usually based on lots of members to build a Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 company piling up value for the start-up guys and some early investors - see also the Dot-Com bubble. We do not believe in a business model without substance or real value for the users. While social and business networking might work for some it often seems to us like going to a large conference or a trade fair. So many people - so little real new business. Following the old 20/80 rule you will meet mostly people you know anyway and do 80% of your business with them. If your are lucky you will generate some of the other 20% of your business with those people you meet by chance - at the trade fair or online. But who would win - the person you meet online or the chance customer you meet face-to-face? - Also note the twitter effect - how relevant is that for your business?

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Are we different?

We will leave this to your judgement. We decided to strive for simplicity - sometimes referred to as "kiss" - keep it short and simple. Please tell us where we can reduce any excess weight - contact us.

We are focusing on a particular industry and we are limiting membership to people who are relevant in the business of developing retail, shopping and entertainment businesses from a simple shop to a multiple and from the local market to the flagship life style centre.

We expect that the information and the people you find here are genuine and relevant to meet for you to do your business. You will have a platform to show your projects and your skills. You will be able to look for people to help you to solve your challenges. You will be able to to share your ideas, to contribute your knowledge and to find information. The more you contribute the more you will receive.

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Technology, GNU etc.

The basis of the m & m portal is Open Source and/or GNU GPL and other similar "free" licences for software and some content. The most visible software implementation is called Drupal. Further down the line are Linux and Apache servers and more. Please read the relevant licence agreements in summaries or in detail. A free licence does not mean there are no copyrights, trademarks or other proprietary rights attached.

We also refer to Wikipedia and other portals for freely usable information. All these resources are available freely and in some cases allow the users to change, add or amend the work of one or a number of volunteers.

m & m supports the Open Source and GNU GPL, etc. movements in many ways and promotes their cause. But as a general rule this site does not distribute any software or material under these free licences and thus unauthorized downloading or copying of material would be a breach of the General Terms of Use. The same applies to all pages, nodes, polls, blogs, books and all material published here with the exception of documents and files that are clearly marked for downloading.

Our RSS feeds may be used according to our General Terms of Use for non-commercial purposes. Should you need clarification about how you could use our RSS feeds please contact us. We will consider every request and usually are happy to grant the use of RSS feeds.

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Languages

Currently - in alpha and Beta phase - this site will be available in English only. We may start to use other languages gradually - but we believe English will be the international language of business. Members interested in a truly international reach will only be able to use English to be really successful. This is not a question about our preference as we speak English, German, Spanish, Russian, French and a few more languages in our team. This is a question of convenience for better or worse.

Once we start to introduce other languages please be patient and help us with your feed back. Internationalisation of a site like this will be no easy task.

Please let us know what you think about our views on language and a predominate use of English for some time to come - Web_master@mallsandmore.com.

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Membership

m & m is a members only site.

So, the key question is on how to become a member. During the alpha phase we will be inviting people to join m & m as First Members (FMs). Becoming a FM carries some important benefits and some responsibilities, but then this is true for any role we assume in life. The key for the membership is to be active in the business and to contribute to this site. As in the business of retail we can never just sit back and collect profits. At any time we expect that active and contributing members will have an opportunity to free membership based on commercial considerations.

During Beta stage m & m and the FMs will invite more members to join as Early Members (EMs).

FMs and EMs shall have free membership for their active and contributing lifetime. FMs will also share 10% of the company value if they remain active members for 3 years. EMs could join the FM group during the first 3 years if FM members leave. There will never be more than 300 FMs during the first 3 years and then the number may shrink.

After fully release we would expect the membership to grow steadily and we will discuss the membership structure during alpha and beta stages with the initial members. Naturally, m & m will take the final decision of the membership structure.

What constitutes an active and contributing member? - For details see here.

Once the site is fully released we expect to charge for the membership an annual fee.

If your are interested to join please contact us by email - just click here -  Joining.

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Copyright and so on

Once these many free sources are packaged and used as in this unique portal by and for m & m then copyright, trademarks, patents and other proprietary rights apply for all those elements that are not released under Open Source, GNU GPL, etc.

The Open Source software and freely available images, documents and other materials we are using here have to be located and sourced (downloaded) by all user from the original sources and not from this site.

For this portal it should be clearly understood that all material published here is copyrighted to malls and more and/or their authors. In all cases malls and more holds the full licence for publishing the material here and in this form, format and context. All authors are free to publish their own material as they like in other media based on their agreement with malls and more. All authors have confirmed a copyright agreement with m & m  including confirmation that the author holds the copyright and is not infringing on other, third party agreements of any kind and nature by publishing their material here.

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