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 home on the left side of the page, under Regular Features.
It seems that hardly a day passes without a journalist trashing the blogosphere - and for some reason it tends to happen most often when someone is writing about sports. Christie Blatchford is among the most recent - see “I’m not blogging this, mark my words” on the Globe and Mail website. While I’ve written about this topic fairly extensively before (see here, here, and here in particular), a few of her points - all centered around the negative effect blogs are having on journalism - made me want to dig into the subject a little more. Notably:
And journalism wasn’t meant to be a conversation, anyway. It was maybe a monologue, at its most democratic a carefully constructed dialogue. If readers didn’t like or agree with the monologues in paper A, they bought paper B. What was most important about their opinions was that they thought enough to spend the coin.
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.
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.
I’ve been trying to immerse myself in the world of social media over the last few months, and it has been quite an eye-opening experience. As I’ve navigated this remarkably inter-connected little world I’ve probably read several thousand blog posts on the topic, and most of these – predictably – seem to focus on the people Malcolm Gladwell would call the “mavens” and “connectors”.
For the six of you that may not have read his book, “mavens” are the intense gatherers of information and impressions that are most likely to pick up on new trends, and “connectors” are people with a broad network of acquaintances that trust their opinion. Whether the actual term used is “trend setter”, “nfluencer”, “bzzagent”, or any of the many of the others you are likely to come across in the social media blogosphere, the focus seems to primarily be on how these two types of people are using new social media tools.
Seeing this led me to ponder a simple question – what about everyone else? What about that staggeringly large group of people that are neither mavens nor connectors (and particularly those one might call anti–social) - are their social media appetites distinctly different, and if so what are the implications for companies pursuing a social media strategy? More pointedly, will this great mass of people slowly get in line with the adoption curve that mavens and connectors are setting in social media, or might they do something totally different – something that would put some of the prevailing theories regarding cohort behavior into question? To begin looking into this issue, I wanted to start with a particular application where I sense line is being drawn in the sand – Twitter.
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!
There is a great debate raging all over the blogosphere, and more traditional media for that matter, in regards to the effect the Internet is having on the “wiring” of our brains, and more specifically our collective reading skills. We’ve recently written about it here, here, here, and here, Nicholas Carr had a great piece published in the Atlantic Monthly called “Is Google Making us Stupid“, Clay Shirky has an excellent response on the Britannica Blog entitled “Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr“, and a variety of other well thought out replies to Carr’s article can be found here.
Personally, I find that the quality of the debate itself runs somewhat counter to the thesis that Google, Digg, blogs, and other social media tools are making us stupider (or stoopider, if you prefer) - it’s pretty hard to read everything that I’ve linked to above and not come out feeling a little smarter for the time invested. However, such articles are by no means representative of what most people typically spend time reading online, so I certainly see value in the debate continuing to evolve - which is where this recent NY TImes piece comes in.
Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes (and I really like the first couple as thought starters in terms of how brains are being wired differently, in a way that could be construed as both good and bad): Read More »
An article on CNN.com explains the growing trend of web 2.0 usage in Congress. Leading the way is Rep. John Culberson of Texas. He uses twitter.com, qik.com, and utterz.com to reach his constituents. Culberson’s goal is to “Shine sunlight in every dark corner of the Congress, to make the Congress and the government as transparent as humanly possible.” Culberson isn’t alone. Many members of congress and politicians from all areas of the government have been utilizing the amazing networking potential of web 2.0 applications. I’m sure you have all seen or at least heard of McCain and Obama’s use of Youtube for the presidential election. Use of web 2.0 sites has allowed politicians to communicate more effectively with their constituents. Online videos and blogs have proven far more effective and cost efficient than billboards and bumper stickers.
The growing use of web 2.0 has also led to a growing concern by many. The House Franking Commission, which regulates the uses of taxpayers’ money for communicating with constituents, has considered restricting use of sites like youtube and qik. The concern of inappropriate usage of taxpayers’ money is legitimate, but I for one think that we need more transparency in the government. Web 2.0 sites provide a very cost efficient means of creating this transparency through increased communication.
Culberson is on the right track and I hope the Franking Commission doesn’t thwart his positive efforts. In response to this concern Culberson said, “They will not stop me. They can no more regulate the Internet than they can regulate the wind.”
I don’t know if his gunslinger mentality is right… but I like it
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.
As always, you can check out the original (and all the other mash ups) at www.dilbert.com. To celebrate my 50th mash up on the Dilbert platform, I thought that it was about time that I started branching out into a new genre - action films. The graphic below is not for the faint of heart, but it was recently revealed that Hellboy overpowered Hancock in the US, so somebody had to take a stand north of the border…
YouTube has entered the political arena once again. This September, New Zeland’s TVNZ and YouTube will partner to launch a website allowing people to submit video questions for the 49th New Zealand Parliamentary election. This demonstrates that even though there were a few “bumps in the road” during 2007 Republican Primaries, the push for including the public will continue. This partnership also shows that “television” realizes the influence YouTube has and is taking advantage of it.
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
As always, you can check out the original (and all the other mash ups) at www.Dilbert.com. The site is having a couple of issues right now, but the new tool that enables group mash ups is particularly interesting as you get to fill out all three boxes… anyone care to join me?
When I was doing follow-up research on the topic of prosumerism (chapter 5) last year, the XNA platform (which enabled people to create games for the XBox) was one of the examples I was most interested in. It has continued to evolve, and if you want to see it in action you can check out the creators club online, “a community all about games - created by you, played by everyone.” There are lots of fun little games available, and the next round of the Dream-Build-Play challenge has been launched, offering $75,000 in prizes for the best games - and bragging rights of course.
The problem, however, is that most people will respond to that by saying “I have no idea how to make a game” - and if you go to the game creation details page, most people will be long gone right after they read “Visual C# 2005″ and see what they have to download. It all seems quite confusing if you’re not, you know, a game designer. However, if you want to make a far easier foray into game making, you can now go to Sims Carnival - where users can create their own games on the platform EA provides, with the site providing all kinds of helpful tools along the way.
I’ve just started the process of making my own game (Hancock’s shoot em up), and it is remarkably easy - you simply register and answer a series of questions that are provided, and next thing you know you have a game. Admittedly, the product that emerges at the end of this isn’t particularly good - my game right now has a bunch of boxes floating around, and evidently I have to shoot the black ones before they hit the green ones, I think - but I’ve been presented with a series of tools that can make it better. The first that I’ll likely try is the Swapper, which allows me to swap in any images I want to replace those pesky boxes. If I want to do more than that, I can download the game (or anyone else’s for that matter) and customize it as I see fit… and if I really get going I can download the Game Creator and do even more.
Here’s an interesting little story from TorrentFreak - when Mr. Suitcase published an album last year, he started receiving payments from Stim (the Swedish Performing Rights Society), which is funded via a tax on all recordable media in Sweden. This is often referred to as the “Pirate Tax”, as it is designed to compensate artists for having their creative output “stolen” in various ways. To quote Mr. Suitcase on how he responded:
“First, I got a bit put off by receiving the money because to me, that kind of arbitrary hand-out of alms is a ridiculous system. Then I thought, why not see it as an opportunity and earmark the money for something creative. And since the money came from piracy, I had to use it for more piracy, right?”
So he created a new album, fully funded by the tax, by using other people’s music and putting it through some old effects boxes he acquired. In turn, the end result is what some might call a pirated mash-up album, fully funded by an anti piracy tax. I’m sure not everyone would agree with his approach, but one (or at least I) have to love the mindset he took to get there:
“To me, ‘Frauds’ is a statement. There’s so much negativity in the debate. ‘File sharing means artists can’t…’, ‘File sharing means nobody will ever…’ I think it’s the opposite, I think the beautiful aspect of the digital era is that anything recorded can be remixed, tweaked and modified.”
If you don’t know who I’m referring to, you are clearly not one of the millions and millions of people that watched some iteration of this Chris Crocker video - now that would be a bad rumor to spread. You can check out the original, and all the other mash ups, at www.dilbert.com.
Those of us who make predictions about the future can often run into a particularly frustrating problem – being right, but being right too early. This is something I’ve been through a few times, particularly with the Naked Corporation – I thought, and continue to think, that it’s a great book about the future of the enterprise and transparency, but when it was published in 2003 it never really gained the traction I hoped for. Fast forward to 2007 – while I was particularly happy about how well Wikinomics was (and continues to be) received, when I saw this cover of Wired Magazine that came out around the same time… let’s just say I couldn’t help but wonder how the Naked Corporation would have fared if the timing worked out better.
Such issues of timing and prediction underlie Paul Krugman’s excellent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times called “Bits, Bands, and Books”. He opens by quickly recapping the technology bubble of the late 1990s, the inevitable collapse, and then jumps to the recent oil and food shocks that have reminded us we still live in a “material world.” But it’s what he says next that is most important:
So much, then, for the digital revolution? Not so fast. The predictions of ’90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected — but the future they envisioned is still on the march.
Admittedly, I’ve treaded back into a “tenuous connection” to wikinomics space here, but there’s only so much you can do with a man’s head coming off to reveal a weasel. You can check out all the other mash ups, and the original, at www.dilbert.com. Better yet, you could create your own… is there an open source joke in here somewhere?
Too bad, because in time the clown could be revealed as well intentioned, yet misunderstood - always a winning storyline! You can check out the original, and all the other mash ups, at www.dilbert.com.
2018 - A Vision of the Future
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 [...]
