Welcome to IKain! This document is designed to be a user manual and navigation guide for IKain's online trading system for virtual services. Its purpose is to provide you some background about IKain's product, and how to utilize its functions. A user with some basic knowledge on internet and web surfing should be able to follow the instructions in this document.

IKain is the acronym for International Knowledge And Information Network.

Virtual jobs are those jobs you can do remotely. They do not need your physical presence. Examples of jobs that can go virtual are: language conversations, tutoring, many kinds of consulting, security monitoring of neighborhood or check point, child/patient monitoring, data entries and data processing, problem solving, telephone answering service, and many types of customer support. We don't limit on what job can be done remotely or not. You are the eventual judge on this regard.

There are many distinct methods to deliver virtual services. Telephone, fax, mobile phones, satelite channels, P2P networks, and of course, the Internet. IKain focus on delivering virtual services using the Internet, especially via a web browser using the internet.

IKain is a trading platform for virtual services. People who provide virtual services, and people who receive virtual services can all come to our website, and trade with each other. We call a user a "Provider" if he provides virtual services to others, and a user "Recipient" if he receives virtual services from a Provider. A user can be both a "Provider" and a "Recipient" the same time, i.e he can be a Provider for one service and be a Recipient for another service. For example, if you are an American, you can be a "Provider" for "Oral English Tutoring", and you can be a "Recipient" for "Oral Chinese Tutoring" at the same time.

Our website is the aggregation point for both Providers and Recipients. On our website, you can advertise to seek a virtual service on our website, if you believe somebody will be interested in providing that to you. You can advertise to provide a virtual service, if you believe somebody will use it. There is no definite answer on what service can be virtual, what cannot not. The starting point of utilizing our services is to set up posters. You can post advertisements as Providers and as Recipients. You can post many advertisements in both category: the Provider and the Recipient categories.

We provide scheduling and transaction support. Two involved parties in a trade, we call Party A and Party B with one acting as the "Provider" and the other the "Recipient", can schedule each other using our "Schedule" function. At the scheduled time, they can conduct the transaction using our "Chat Room" function. Our Chat Room provides support for videos, sound track, file exchanges, a message center, and instead messaging.

Finally, we support the transferring of service fee for a transaction, from the Recipient to the Provider of this transaction. The price for each service is negotiated at first and agreed upon by both parties. When a schedule is agreed by both parties, credits are withhold from each party to guarantee the completion of this service. At the completion of the service, the money is transfered from a Recipient's account into the Provider's account.

A trading platform of a virtual services must support some essential functions, including account registration, user profiles, posting advertisements, search advertisements, scheduling events, transaction support, and payments and balance tracking. Our system is designed to support all these functions. Our philosophy of designing this seemly complex system is to make it intuitive and transparent to users.