Portal is my favorite videogame, it came out just about a year ago. For the uninitiated, the game is built around a new gameplay mechanic: portals. In a twist on the standard First Person Shooter (FPS), instead of having a bang-bang gun, you have a portal gun. It shoots two things, a blue portal and an orange portal. The portals form on any flat surface and anything that goes in one instantly comes out the other. Here’s the trailer:
Valve, the company who developed Portal, has a long history of openness with their games. With their first game, Half-Life, Valve released a Software Development Kit (SDK) that allowed amateur game designers to build their own games on top of the existing engine. Counter-Strike, arguably the most popular FPS game ever, was the result of a fan-made project built on top of the Half-Life engine. Valve ended up hiring the team behind Counter-Strike, and eventually made a sequel. Read More »
As October draws near, and the temperature begins to drop, hockey fans anxiously await the opening game(s) of the NHL season; but for CBC viewers what song will be played during the opening broadcast? For over 40 years the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song has permeated through Canadian living rooms and sports bars, signaling “game time.” However, at the beginning of June, the rights to the infamous jingle were sold to the CTV-owned TSN. (In other words; a canuck crisis).
In search of an anthem, CBC looked to the best possible source….hockey fans themselves, launching “Canada’s Hockey Anthem Challenge.” Just to prove that Canada is the hockey nation, even in the middle of the summer, hockey fans from across the country rose to the challenge, with more than 14,000 submissions received by the August 31 deadline.
I wouldn’t normally encourage you to Google “studbooks”, especially for those readers that visit us while they should be working. (Crickets)
What is a studbook? I’ll let the FAQ at Studbooks.org, answer that one:
A studbook is literally a register in which the origin (descent) and characteristics of the registered animals of one race or species are drawn up. In case of the ESF, this concerns a group of reptile and amphibian species. A studbook can arrange a number of things: management of an animal species in captivity, countering inbreeding by working with breeding programmes and knowledge collection and publication.
This means that the studbook keeper keeps track of which animals are being cared for at which location and which animals reproduce, the goal of this being to guarantee the genetic health of the population on the long term. Animals and their offspring can be exchanged between (aspiring) studbook members, with the studbook keeper possibly playing a mediating / advising role. The studbook keeper can be consulted if there are questions regarding the husbandry and breeding of the species.
Once a year, the studbook keeper publishes an annual report, in which mutations and successes of the past year are noted.
The FAQ also explains why studbooks are important:
Especially for species that are in danger of extinction (in captivity and/or in the wild), it is vitally important to keep the gene pool of the population as broad as possible. The smaller the population, the bigger the chance of risks that come with inbreeding. With every individual animal that dies in a small population (such as the European captive population), part of the genetic variation disappears that is necessary for a genetically healthy population. The same applies for an animal that does not reproduce: this individual is genetically `dead` for its populations future existence, unless an effort is made to breed with the individual.
The collection and transfer of knowledge means that an effort is made to collect, and eventually publish, as much information as possible about the husbandry and breeding of a studbook species. This way, one person can be consulted instead of `the wheel having to be reinvented` again and again.
In essence, through collaboration, these zoology “dating sites” can best match breeding pairs based on data captured in various sources and tabulated in a common space. Steve Feldman, spokesperson for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums which oversees the majority of studbooks for exotic species in the United States was quoted in the Sunday New York Times “to paraphrase an old Jeff Foxworthy joke, it’s important that your family tree forks. This way we can have a genetically diverse population.”
At our June conference in Boston, CEO and founder of Legal OnRamp Paul Lippe started his presentation with a little pop quiz. Without stealing too much of his thunder, I thought I’d post one of the more interesting questions from his deck:
“Name a comprehensive information resource, written by random people and commentators all over the world (the #1 contributor was condemned as insane), that is only distributed online?”
To understand the wikinomics connection here, you may have to read what wikipedia has to say about termites. Notably:
The termites are a group of social insects usually classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera (but see also taxonomy below). As truly social animals, they are termed eusocial along with the ants and some bees and wasps which are all placed in the separate order Hymenoptera. Termites mostly feed on dead plant material, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, soil, or animal dung…
As eusocial insects, termites live in colonies that, at maturity, number from several hundred to several million individuals. They are a prime example of decentralised, self-organised systems using swarm intelligence and use this cooperation to exploit food sources and environments that could not be available to any single insect acting alone.
As always, you can check out the original at www.dilbert.com, and see all my other mashups here.
I got an email a few weeks back from a freelancer who wanted some information related to government 2.0, notably how do you measure it’s value, success or progress, i.e. show me the metrics.
His take, “all theory and fanfare” with no real substance.
Welcome back to another edition of the Wikinomics Roundup: Week in Review, where I capture in brief, some of the thoughts, discoveries, and discussions that graced the blog throughout the past week.
In case you missed it, you can catch last week’s roundup HERE. Friendly reminder: the Wikinomics Roundup has a nice new home on the left side of the page, under Regular Features.
It occured to me that in one hundred, or even one thousand or more years, historians are going to use Wikipedia to figure out what it is that we thought of ourselves. Apparently we like Pokemon.
My argument goes like this: as Will argued a few days ago, Wikipedia, by virtue of it’s nature, could be more fair and balanced than any news network. The John Edwards article he discussed was pulled back and forth by differing viewpoints until finally an equilibrium of compromise was agreed on. While the article may or may not paint a true-to-life picture of things, it paints a picture that, in general, people find truth in — that is to say, an article on wikipedia is a snapshot of our current concensus about the state of the world. Read More »
Sarah Lai Stirland over at Wired’s ThreatLevel has a great post today about a fight that recently occurred amongst Wikipedia editors over whether the entry for John Edwards should include information about his alleged love affair.
The National Enquirer claims that Edwards fathered an illegitimate child with his web video producer, but without any substantive evidence to back it up, it seems that none of the US networks (except truth-crusader Fox News) have covered the story.
The Wikipedia entry on Edwards was locked after a 37,000-word debate concluded that the scandal, and the sources that reported on it, did not meet Wikipedia’s standards of reliability. Yesterday, however, users voted to unlock the article and include a compromise statement that references the scandal, but only in regards to its influence on Edwards’ chances for the vice presidency.
To me this illustrates how Wikipedia and social media have the potential to provide far more reliable and balanced sources of information than traditional media.
An ongoing criticism of Wikipedia is that it is unreliable. You just can’t trust it. Who knows where that information is coming from. Well call me crazy, but this story shows that Wikipedia is applying a higher standard of reliability than the US’s most-watched cable news network (not that that’s saying much).
On the other hand, Wikipedia struggles with the issue of censorship and bias. You just can’t trust Wikipedia because its edited by a bunch of conservatives/liberals/people-I-don’t-agree-with. They aren’t telling the whole story. Of course that argument can be made with the mainstream media as well. But when a major network or newspaper is biased or commits censorship, people complain and/or go somewhere else for their news, they don’t solve the problem. In this case, Wikipedians thoughtfully discussed the issue, reached a compromise, voted democratically, and solved (or at least moved towards a solution for) the problem.
In a media environment that seems increasingly unconcerned with factuality, biased, and obsessed with scandal, Wikipedia seems so … mature!
As I noted a little while back, the majority of my Dilbert mash ups are now being posted on a different site - you can check them all out here. However, if there’s a direct application to the principles of wikinomics they’ll be posted here, and there’s something about jury duty that speaks to either the wisdom or madness of crowds (depending on your perspective), so this seems to fit quite well with the ‘mass collaboration’ theme. It’s also interesting to note that we recently found out that the Dilbert mash ups are one of the prime conduits to the wikinomics blog for our Google reader subscribers - hopefully this will continue, and those that don’t like them can just look past them!
As always, you can check out the original at www.dilbert.com.
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?
Coles notes version: if you like(d) my Dilbert mash ups, please visit them at their new home: Denis’ Dilbert Mashups.
Regular readers of the blog may notice something different about today’s Dilbert mashup: such as the lack of a visible comic, or “mashup” if you will. The reason for this ties back to some fellow named “Rob”, who clearly has no sense of humour and spoiled the fun for the rest of us made an interesting comment on the July 18th mashup. In short, he found the Dilbert mashup to be a distraction not worthy of his attention, and indicated he would likely unsubscribe from the wikinomics blog, even though he really likes the rest of it, if my Dilberts continued messing up his techo-babble /noise. I’m also fairly sure he didn’t want my autograph.
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.
Most of us use popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter for staying in touch with friends and meeting new people, but have you ever heard of someone using one of these sites to free someone from jail?
That’s exactly what happened here. A photographer, James Karl Buck, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were jailed in Egypt back in April. Buck used his cell phone to post the message “Arrested” on Twitter. Within a day, his school hired an attourney, and Buck was released. However, his translator was detained for an additional 3 months. Buck again went to his Twitter network, now with over 570 followers, for help in getting his translator freed. Over 900 signed an online petition which was used to free Maree.
Whoever thought the power of Web 2.0 could have an impact like this? Web 2.0 enables people to get the word out about a certain issue or topic that needs exposure. My colleague Komail Mithani wrote an entry earlier this week on how Web 2.0 enables people to have their voices heard in regards to customer service issues.
Freeing people from jail via a social networking site or other Web 2.0 technology may not be something one can expect to increase in occurrence in the future but I do foresee more and more interesting and unique uses of Web 2.0. What are some ways you’ve used a Web 2.0 technology for a unique purpose or goal?
On Wednesday Yahoo! made a pretty cool announcement: Today, Yahoo! Search is taking another step in extending the Yahoo! Open Strategy with the launch of Yahoo! Search BOSS, a web services platform that allows developers and companies to create and launch web-scale search products by utilizing the same infrastructure and technology that powers Yahoo! Search. Here are my two favorite wikinomics themed quotes to entice you into reading the post:
What’s in it for Yahoo! and partners?: Why would Yahoo! open up its search infrastructure and technology to developers, entrepreneurs and companies who could use it to compete with us? It’s really quite simple. First, we believe that being open is core to Yahoo!’s future success — opening our network, opening our own search experience via SearchMonkey, and now opening our search infrastructure via BOSS — will lead to innovation both on Yahoo! and powered by Yahoo!.
What’s in it for users?: More choice. BOSS will enable a range of fundamentally different search experiences. These new search products will provide value to users along multiple dimensions, such as vertical specialization, new relevance indicators and ranking models, and innovative UI implementations. Our hope is that the resulting expansion in user choice will have the effect of fragmenting the increasingly consolidated search market in much the same way that cable TV dramatically increased programming choices for television viewers.
Editor’s note: this is the third post in a multi-part series from Stewart Mader, author of Wikipatterns. You can check out some of his other work at Grow Your WIki, and the first two parts of the series can be found here and here.
When an organization has a wiki at the center of its operations, people can gather and share the kind of information that others need - including everything from projects, products, initiatives, strategies, and other pieces of the big picture, to the everyday: how to process an expense report, access an office’s network, get business cards printed, or reserve a meeting room. On a wiki, this information can be gathered by the small efforts of many.
Let’s look at an example - the expense report. It’s a standard process, with a common form that people need to access, complete, include receipts, and submit for approval.
As always, check out www.dilbert.com for the original and all the other mash ups - now on to my comment on voting.
I have a group of people that I know who regular read my Dilbert cartoons, and they are extremely blunt in their assessments - whether they’re great, terrible, or somewhere in between. Interestingly enough, whenever they say that I’ve done a “good or better” job lately, I tend to find I have a relatively large number of ratings on the Dilbert site - but the ratings tend to be quite low. One possibility is that everyone I know has equally bad senses of humor, but I’m going to ignore that for now to look at what could be a fundamental flaw in the voting system.
I have to credit Nicholas Carr’s blog for pointing me towards this interesting little article by Jimmy Wales, founder of wikipedia. For a long time, wikipedia promoted itself as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Now, Wales describes it as “the online encyclopedia in which any reasonable person can join us in writing and editing stories on any encyclopedic topic.” While at first it doesn’t appear to be a huge difference, there are a lot of little insights that can be pulled from the subtle changes. Off the top of my head:
1. the word “free” is gone. While Wales goes on to add it is a “charitable humanitarian effort”, one could hypothesize the “free” part is now of much lower importance to the wikipedia value proposition. When it first started, one might argue that “free” was one of the key differentiators, and now it is just par for the course.
Technology and the US election I've written several times about the impact of social networks on this year's US Presidential election - see here and here. And let's be honest, the use of such networks and new web 2.0 technologies has been dominated by Obama. He’s embraced social networks like no other candidate in an attempt to connect with [...]
