Posts filed under 'community'
October 10th, 2008, 02:11pm
Media outlets are rolling in clichés about the current economic nastiness (”The U.S. Sneezes, The World Catches Cold”). Warren Buffett couldn’t help himself with his “toxic Kool-Aid” references and a most recent Charlie Rose interview likening the U.S. economy to a “patient lying on the floor”.
The shockwave is moving quickly: venture capital stalwarts Sequoia Capital have been instructing their portfolio companies to prepare for a “doomsday scenario”. Cutting fat, eliminating redundancy, and finding the cheapest darn way to do business is now the imperative of all those wide-eyed, once-well-funded start-ups.
My dad once gave me good advice which I didn’t take. “Son, doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers are recession-proof. Work smart.” For the most part, it holds true (it seems some lawyers are having a hard time). But it seems like you don’t need to be bricks-and-mortar or an M.D. to stay “recession-resistant”. Like magic, outsourcing marketplaces have been going like gangbusters despite economic woes.
The more people who take pages from Sequoia’s warning to slim down to essential personnel and services find that outsourcing fits the bill nicely. It’s like having talent attached to a spigot—you can match the resource-flow to your cash-flow (and work-flow) on-demand. A Reuters article boasts that Elance (a popular outsourcing marketplace) has increased billings by 65% this year—driven by the need for smaller firms to have a flexible, highly-trained workforce.
If this downturn finds you sitting on the couch, reluctantly watching daytime TV, outsourcing marketplaces could be just ticket to get you off The Young and The Restless and back to the ranks of the gainfully employed.
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September 29th, 2008, 11:43am
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We’ve written before about how Obama has deployed technology and engaged the Net Generation to enhance his bid for the Oval Office. See here, here, here, here, and here.
Here is another interesting story in today’s Wall St. Journal.
After two campaign signs disappeared from his lawn, Preston Fosback decided to monitor it via an Internet camera. From the article:
Dozens of viewers now take shifts, based on their time zones, so as not to leave the sign unwatched at any time. Viewers in Europe take over for those turning in on the West Coast, who are in turn relieved by a dedicated crew of Australians. It’s attracted more than 40,000 viewers and ranks among the top 10 most-watched videos on Ustream.tv, the Web site that hosts the video, among videos of the two presidential candidates and comedian Dane Cook.
The video (and ongoing commentary) can be found here.
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September 15th, 2008, 04:58pm
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I was surfing the web trying to figure out the best way to connect my laptop to my TV (in my defence - I had an idea of how to do it in theory… but wanted to find out in practical terms) when I came across an interesting YouTube video.
It was created by a young, talented kid who lives in Japan called Adrian, aka kidguru. With a straightforward, easy to understand video, kidguru very articulately explained how someone looking to connect their laptop to a tv would go about doing it. Going to his YouTube channel I discovered that he’s been doing this for almost a year now and has turned his site Tech-World into a blogging, vlogging, podcasting, twitter site/community. He’s managed to turn a hobby into a paying job, with sponsors and understands the value of creating community around his videos. He does product and app reviews, and tutorials among other educational things.
KidGuru’s YouTube channel now has over 1,500 subscribers and over 47,000 channel views, and he is now an official YouTube partner. The YouTube partner program is an ad revenue sharing program to reward users that frequently post original content and who have a steady following of thousands of viewers.
If you have any tech related questions I suggest checking out Kidguru’s channel or sending him an e-mail!
Read More »
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September 9th, 2008, 08:41am
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On the heels of the interesting conversation generated by Anthony’s post regarding Patient Opinion and it’s interaction with the National Health Service, I thought I’d point to an interesting article by the UK-based National Computing Council on Web 2.0 deployment for local government. Like Anthony, they wonder why many of the most innovative citizen-centric activities happen outside of government, noting innovative examples such as MySociety.org and LGSearch as being at the leading edge of what can be provided to, and crowdsourced with citizens. That said, they also point to a variety of Web 2.0 esque applications being developed by local councils, and while most are rather simple, their final guidelines on the integration and use of tWeb 2.0 tools are is spot-on. See below:
UK National Computing Council guidelines for Web 2.0 deployment
- Don’t think about Web 2.0 or e-government as being just about technology. It is about saving time and making life easier and more efficient for citizens.
- Make sure you are resourced to cope. No point setting up a blog that encourages comments if you can’t respond to each comment.
- Carefully plan your strategy if using blogs. Read More »
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September 5th, 2008, 12:45pm
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Note from Denis: this blog post ended up being a lot longer than I expected. The first seven paragraphs focus more on the “challenges” these sites are facing, but I encourage readers to check out the bottom 3 or 4 about what Marketocracy has been up to this year- they could be hitting a very interesting tipping point in their model, in a good way.
In February of 2007 I wrote a post entitled The Perils and Promise of Marketocracy, a company that was taking a very wikinomics-type approach to finding the “best investors in the world by tracking, analyzing and evaluating their performance in managing virtual portfolios on the site.” While I was, and continue to be, quite intrigued by the possibilities of their model, the bulk of the post was fairly critical. The reason for this was a clear disconnect between the performance of the virtual m100 index, which was based on the stock picks of the best investors in the Marketocracy community, and the Marketocracy Masters 100, which was the real mutual fund supposedly based on the m100.
The main problem I had is pretty easy to demonstrate For example, if you looked at the performance of the virtual fund (as posted on the site), it seemed to perform remarkably well from (for example) January ‘03 to January ‘05- a net gain in the 70 % range. If you looked at the performance of the real fund over the same time period, it went from $9.93 on January 3rd 2003 to $10.86 on January 7th 2005. Suffice to say, that’s a lot less than 70%- which doesn’t make a lot of sense if one is based on the other. You can read the post for more details, which was an update on the original post (after I interviewed the CEO).
What inspired me to revisit the company was a TechCrunch story about Cakedex. Read More »
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August 29th, 2008, 11:30am
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Over the past year we have been working with a number of organizations from both the private and public sector and they all seem to have a similar problem. They want to be more open and transparent in the way that they operate, but they don’t know where to start. A lot of times struggling to define what being open means and requires in the Web 2.0 era.
Today openness and transparency are lauded as being not just good for your brand and public relations, but good for business too. (I think Don was just a few years to early with his book The Naked Corporation) The thing is that when companies jumped on the transparency bandwagon a few years ago, openness translated to sharing information on a website. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools changed the landscape overnight and stakeholders not only expect timely access to information, but a channel to engage and interact with the organization. What seemed like a simple task even three or four years ago has now transformed into a more complex exercise.
From the standpoint of the organization the bar has been raised in terms of the resources, policies and diligence they need to undergo in order to successfully engage stakeholders. Organizations aren’t used to committing the effort and resources to these initiatives, and even more troubling for many is the question “once we engage stakeholders, do we have to listen to them?” Organizations are used to functioning in a vacuum, formulate a strategy, develop offerings, communicate with customer, measure success, evaluate and repeat. Being open means that you have to do things like co-create offerings, collaboratively manage your brand and image, engage customers and listen and respond to feedback.
Read More »
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August 14th, 2008, 10:35am
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One rainy day earlier this summer, nGenera’s Gov 2.0 Program Director, Dan Herman, locked three summer interns in a room (Ben and Jude, and I) and asked us to think about what life - and government - would be like ten years from now. One of the results was the following short story about a day in the life of a man named Donald, in the year 2018. Hope you enjoy.
7:00 AM. The alarm rang, and Donald pressed the confirm button to silence it. His bedroom monitor switched on and began playing his morning video feeds.
Read More »
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August 13th, 2008, 12:53pm
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An article on CNN.com last week tells about a 25 year old teacher from the Netherlands who identified a whole new class of celestial objects. The amazing thing is that she has no formal training in astronomy or astrophysics. She is simply a member of the large online stargazing community called Galaxy Zoo. Anyone can join this community.
The site gives users instructions on how to identify objects and then lets the community go wild. Members are given access to high-resolution photos of outer-space. Everyone is then allowed to identify the objects, and if enough members concur the classification is accepted. The format is similar to Wikipedia.
This site is a great example of the power of open source communities. There are literally endless amounts of celestial objects to be identified. With the help of everyday people, scientists are able to chart the night’s skies with speed and accuracy that was never before possible.
If you are looking for a new hobby check out Galaxy Zoo, and you can become an astronomer without ever leaving your living room.
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August 8th, 2008, 03:04pm
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As part of my effort to help you find meaning(ful applications) in your e-life, i’m starting a regular column called The netGuide. In these blog posts I will briefly talk about some of my website findings from across the web and how they help solve old problems in new and creative ways.
In today’s web wanderings we’re going deep into birdy territory with a.viary.com - a comprehensive suite of free online software that promises to be the next generation of media editing. Invites inside.
Read More »
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July 25th, 2008, 12:52pm
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This is Haydn Shaughnessy’s first Guest Blog on the wikinomics site, focusing on the issue of design in relation to wikinomics. You can check out his gallery of Innovative Contemporary Artists here.
Artists and designers live by the wikinomics code, always have done. Well, perhaps not strictly so, but the competition model that launched Goldcorp to mega success in mining, and that is improving Netflix recommendation engine, are a way of life if you are an artist, designer or architect. For example, take a look at architecture room, a place where architects and designers go for intelligence on open competitions globally: thearchitectureroom.
It is normal for developers commissioning large new buildings to shout out for architects. Right now you can pitch for inclusion in a short list to design the new Munch Museum in Norway, be shortlisted to design the Olympic Village for Madrid’s 2016 Olympic bid, respond to Orlando, Florida’s competition to design the re-use of the American Federal Building… and there are many hundreds more.
So who is doing what right now in the corporate world? Read More »
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July 25th, 2008, 08:31am
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Joe Westhead sent me an interesting email awhile ago in relation to the ongoing MyFootballClub experiment (and has an intriguing post on the subject that I’ll come back to later). For those that may have forgotten, MyFootballClub became relatively famous as it sought out 50,000 fans to not only co-own a professional football (soccer in North America) team, but manage it through the “wisdom of crowds” principles. To quote one of the many articles on their plans (wikipedia has a great overview of their history):
The probable new owners will manage the club, voting online to choose match lineups and buying new players. To help run the team, the fans will be able to view all the matches online and, after the game, receive statistics on how each player has performed. They will also get weekly updates from the team’s head coach on how each player is doing during practice.
It sounded really good - and most commentators particularly focused on the ability to vote on line ups as a key driver of participation. This functionality went live recently, but was hardly a resounding success - less than 2,000 of the over 30,000 members voted on the line ups for some recent games, and the vast majority that did bother to vote elected to let the coach decide. This lack of involvement has led to several articles like this one, which sees it not only a hugely negative development, but as potentially foreshadowing the collapse of the entire experiment. But is it really that bad?
Read More »
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July 20th, 2008, 01:11pm
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Today, games are usually released for purchase both in stores (on CD/DVD) and online for download. The disc version of the game usually has a check built-in to make sure that the disc is actually in the drive, confriming that you’ve actually bought the game. Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 was no different, except that the downloadable version of the game also had this disc-check left in — clearly a problem for gamers who opted for the download.
Usually, online piracy groups release “no-cd cracks” that allow games to be played without a legitimate (or any) game-disc. These groups are violating the game developers’ terms of service agreements, and enabling the theft countless games — but, they write good code! So much so, that in order to fix the disc-check issue with Rainbox Six: Vegas 2, Ubisoft released a no-cd patch that contained code written by the piracy group named RELOADED. This was revealed by a user on the Ubisoft Forums. Read More »
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July 18th, 2008, 01:58pm
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Courtesy my Facebook feed and District of Columbia CTO Vivek Kundra here’s a fantastic example of a government agency actively trying to stimulate new ideas and innovation. Yesterday Kundra’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) released data representing more than 84,000 3D buildings for inclusion in Google Earths’ Cities in 3D program.
The release is meant to allow citizens, whether development experts or simply concerned city dwellers, a greater role in conversations and plans about the city’s future. Want to propose a new development? These 3D images should go a long way in allowing all parties a better, and simpler, platform upon which to build.
Over at the Google Earth blog, Barney Krucoff, the GIS Manager for OCTO, highlights why they released the data. I’ve cut the highlights of his remarks - visit the LatLong blog for the full version:
1. It is the right thing to do. Fundamentally, the District Government believes that data created with public funds should be available to the public. Read More »
July 17th, 2008, 08:13pm
As popular as wikis have become, they aren’t yet in use across all mediums. Case in point: music. However, a company called Sonoma Wire Works appears to have solved this problem. Sonoma Wire Works has announced the launch of RiffWorks T4, an online music-collaboration application. With RiffWorks T4, musicians can record ideas, use drums and guitars, and add effects to quickly create songs. Most importantly, users do this online, and can easily collaborate with peers around the world — all for free! When finished, their tunes can be broadcast on RiffWorld.com.
Technology empowers users. Apple’s GarageBand, for instance, enabled just about anyone to make professional sounding music (provided a certain level of musicianship). A while ago, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released his music as GarageBand files so that fans can remix them as they please (think open-source music). GarageBand has been popular since the source of the music is standardized, people can send it around and collaborate with friends — basically “playing tennis” with works in progress. However, the distribution of these edited files has effectively been limited to e-mailing music attachments back and forth. Very 1.0.
RiffWorks T4 solves this problem by making the music itself wiki based. It lets four people work on the music at once, but there’s no upper limit to the number of potential collaborators. It also synchronizes the piece across the computers of all of the contributors, and keeps a copy on the web that is always up to date and universally accessible. RiffWorks T4 has wikified music. Because of its centralized, collaborative nature, for the first time ever we can have crowd created music, I wonder what it will sound like.
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July 15th, 2008, 10:15am
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A little while ago I wrote a two-part series called “Looking into the blogosphere through a sporting lens” (part 2 is here). The purpose of the series was to look at some questions underlying a Costas Now program, which itself was supposed to be an insightful look at the role of the blogosphere in relation sports reporting. While the video itself devolved into something far less thoughtful then it could have been, the questions it raised about the role and value of comments in the blogosphere continue to be quite interesting to me.
What leads me to bring this up again is blatant self-promotion are two very interesting posts, with wildly divergent perspectives on the comments issue. The first is from social media expert Chris Brogan, entitled “Musicians play for tips - The importance of comments“. In the post Chris reminds readers that comments are important, presents his rough calculations on the percentage of readers who comment (roughly 1/4 of 1%), and admits that his own personal commenting habits are roughly in the same ballpark.
Read More »
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July 14th, 2008, 12:31am
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Whether you’re a regular reader, or just pop in occasionally, it’s not always easy to keep up with our Wikinomics blog content. With this in mind, we have created the Wikinomics Roundup: Week in Review, to try and capture in brief, some of the thoughts, discoveries, and discussions that graced the blog from the past week.
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July 10th, 2008, 01:59am
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I’m going to come right out and say it: people can get a little obsessive sometimes. And premium cable movie network Showtime has wisely decided to harness the power of their shows’ loyal fans by allowing users to create the content of their shows’ sites.
Showtime launched the first “Fan Wikis” about a year ago, and has since added pages for each of its shows. Since that time, pages have grown from basic content such as user-created cast bios and episode guides to complete guides of, well, everything related to the show.
Tudors’ fans maintain wikis from everything from costume design to a complete list of Tudor executions. Weed’s fans meticulously study characters’ wardrobes and post where to buy the exact article of clothing online. And it’s not a rogue few participating, either. The L Word wiki boasts more than 7,000 members.
Participation is simple. All a fan must do is register with Wetpaint and then check out what tasks are listed on the wiki To-Do list.
I haven’t decided what I think is more genius: Showtime outsourcing website content development to volunteers, or enabling fans to create fan sites on the actual Showtime site, keeping precious traffic right where they want it.
Showtime’s Fan Wikis are powered by Wetpaint, which describes itself as a place where “you can create websites that mix all the best features of wikis, blogs, forums and social networks into a rich, user-generated community based around the whatever-it-is that rocks your socks off.” The company announced May 19 it had raised $25 million to “accelerate the company’s growth.” According to TechCrunch, Wetpaint has now raised more than $40 million in all. On Wednesday, Wetpaint announced that more than 1million free social Wetpaint pages had been created since July 2006.
I’d like to see how Ben Letalik would grade Showtime in his weekly Wikinomics report card. Fan wikis combined with The Tudor’s multi-platform campaign launch of Season 2 (Showtime aired the entire season premiere for free on more than 60 sites, including Netflix and MSN) are very good examples of openness and sharing.
I started watching The Tudors (and subscribed to Showtime) after watching the Season 2 premiere on Netflix for free. I fell for Showtime’s 2.0 marketing plan hook, line, and sinker. Will Showtime’s innovative strategies and social networking features help it get an edge on long-time enemy (and market leader) HBO?
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July 8th, 2008, 03:26pm
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Tamar Weinberg has a very interesting post today, summarizing all the comments she received from a variety of “social media consultants, bloggers, marketers, search engine optimizers, and social media addicts” as to what “traits define a social media marketer?“. My quick count revealed approximately 35 responses - below is Tamar’s summary of her findings, as well as a few of my favorite contributions:
Many agreed that social media is about community-building, passion, and enthusiasm. Creativity, a multi-tasking mindset, and the ability to think outside the box were also heavily agreed upon. Most importantly, those who find the most success in the social media marketing realm are those who are heavily networked and ensure that maintaining ongoing relationships is part of their everyday routine. - Summary of findings by Tamar Weinberg
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July 7th, 2008, 04:13pm
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What interests me most about the Internet is that it is a reflection of the physical world, and the same people, information, and problems inhabit both worlds. In the physical world it’s easy to experience information overload but because we approach this world in a linear, case-by-case fashion (time structure), it can serve to temper how much information we are exposed to all at once. In the virtual world, everything is non-linear (no time structure), which means that you can get access to anything you want at any time, but because of this, it’s much harder to manage information because there’s so much of it coming at you. Enter Dipity – this free, and easy to use application proposes that time can work for you on the Internet, and I’m inclined to agree. Dipity timeline tools allow you to manage online media by ordering related content chronologically. By using Dipity you can create a slick timeline interface that allows you to keep track of videos, pictures, blog posts, and RSS feeds, and I suspect that these applications are just the beginning. We’ve created a timeline for the Wikinomics blog, and it’s easy to see how having visual feedback helps in the way we view and access information.
Derek Dukes, CEO and co-founder of Dipity was kind of enough to sit down with us to talk about this quickly growing company, and what follows are excerpts from that discussion.
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July 4th, 2008, 08:59am
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Now I’m REALLY starting to think things being thrown at other people is a dominant theme - see here, here, and here. Or if you prefer, you can check out the original - and all the other mash ups - at www.dilbert.com.
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