Social Media, Social Capital
and Generation G
Why Should Scholarly Publishers Care?
Kristen Fisher Ratan
HighWire Publishers’ Meeting
Spring, 2009

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Digital media is exploding
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Let’s Review
Everyone is a publisher

Everyone is an author

Every platform is an ―expert‖ resource

Everything is democratized

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Data about
content
User-
generated
content
Expert-
generated
content
Traditionally
Published
Content
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Authoring Sites
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User-generated eBooks
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ReFrameIt
A browser extension that lets you comment 9
right next to any text or image that you find
on the web – and syndicate

Instant Syndication
ReFrameIt
Comment
ReFrameIt
Widget
Network
RSS Twitter
Email Facebook
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Symptoms of Information Overload
Increased cardiovascular

stress
Weakened vision

Confusion and frustration

Impaired judgment based

upon overconfidence
Decreased benevolence to

others
David Shenk, Data Smog

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―It may sound incredibly un-hip and
reactionary, but to hell with the wisdom of
crowds. Watching the crowd might be
entertaining, but when I need to work, I can
get far better results if I constrain that
crowd to a few people whose opinions I
have reason to respect.‖
-Geoffrey Bilder, CrossRef
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Filtered aggregation
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NY Times Article Skimmer
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http://prototype.nytimes.com/gst/articleSkimmer/

Edited aggregation or Link Journalism
= Combination of news from trusted sources,
vetted by human editors
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Platform for Link Journalism
http://www.publish2.com/
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In the war for attention,
filtered aggregation will win
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Hypermediation
―The reality is that the internet continues to
be a rich platform for intermediation
strategies, and it's the intermediaries who
stand to skim up most of the profits to be
made from Web 2.0‖
-Nick Carr
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/11/hypermediation.php
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―Aggregating links is where the real power
online is, not in aggregating content and
getting traffic from the resulting links‖
-Kent Anderson
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/04/14/links-matter-more-than-content-folks/
―It’s the links, stupid. And everyone gives
Google their links to read — for free!!‖
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-Scott Karp
http://publishing2.com/2009/04/11/how-google-stole-control-over-content-distribution-by-stealing-links/

Rankings /
Votes
Discussion
Forums /
eLetters /
Comments
Editorials /
Blogs
Original
Academic
Work
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Show Me The Money!
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―Stop! Money isn’t the capital of choice in
online communities, it is Whuffie!‖
-Tara Hunt
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Blog: http://www.horsepigcow.com/

Whuffie = social capital
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Wikipedia on Whuffie
―the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of
Cory Doctorow's science fiction novel, Down
and Out in the Magic Kingdom.‖
Whuffie replaces money, providing a motivation
for people to do useful and creative things.
Whuffie = ―cred‖
without it you’re a whole lot of spam 24

Make Whuffie
Whuffie is about reputation

Historically, scholarly publisher have had

reputation
How can you leverage that?

Add value:

Find or create the relevant filter

Add or integrate the social aspect

Democratize stuff

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Who is in your community; what do they want?

What can you afford to contribute or give away?


Who Cares About Whuffie?
The ―G Generation‖
Trust peer-to-peer communication
Disgusted with greed and dishonesty
Mistrust traditional authorities
The G stands for Generosity 26

You!
Thank 27
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