embrace the chaos
(& other scary tales from the
social web)
by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt

first...the bad news

Here Lies RIP control
Expertise Secrets

Did you know 4.0?
(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

their deaths have not been exaggerated
• democratization > gatekeepers
• amateurs > experts
• transparency > p.r. spins & brand mgmt
• collaboration > corporate think tanks
• openness/sharing > secrets/intellectual
property

now onto the good news...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3484530193/
the tale of the mysterious taggers

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/133814827/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress

the results
• 10.4 Million views
• 79% of 4,615 photos marked as ‘favorite’
• 15,000 new contacts for Library of Congress
• 7,166 comments left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique
Flickr accounts
• 67,176 tags added by 2,518 unique Flickr users
• <25 instances removed because inappropriate
• their press/blogger coverage was through the roof
Report: For the Common Good, October 30, 2008
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final_summary.pdf

why it succeeded
• the Library of Congress erred on the side of open
(even the licensing)
• they thought of it as an ‘experiment’ rather than a
well-formed strategy
• they trusted and let go of control - they embraced
the chaos
• they looked at it as a long-term partnership

the tale of the amateur journalist

stop being important and
start being interesting...
Michael Hirshorn, Atlantic Monthly

what is interesting?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/3362224306/

http://www.fivethirtyeight.org

600,000 visits PER DAY
(that made fivethirtyeight.com the 2nd most popular political site of 2008)
(in <5 months, rising out of obscurity)
(run initially by ONE guy)

why?
• Silver offered up something valuable
• the site was born out of a passion - first for
numbers, then baseball, then politics
• these numbers were not only accurate, but they
also simplified very complex information
• Silver listened to his audience. He interacted,
responded and tweaked as necessary

tales of the growing mash-ups

the law of mashups
• no matter how much you lock stuff down, it
will be taken and repurposed.
• you should be so lucky as to have your content
remixed. If it isn’t remixed, worry about the
relevance/interestingness of your work.

music

Girl Talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjHj-f6gLkI

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/pl_music_1609

Kutiman (thru-you)
http://thru-you.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBfj6khrG4

photography

http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/index.php

maps

http://www.everyblock.com

twitter

http://www.twittervision.com

http://www.escapemydate.com

what are the benefits of mashups
1. Onramps & Offramps: more ways for people to
interact with and consume your content (traffic
from Twitter’s API is 10x twitter.com)
2. Creativity: those projects you would never get
to in a million years (or think of) are created!
3. Exposure: the more fun the mashup, the more
likely you will get some press from it

most popular mashup apis
• Google Maps >1800 mashups recorded
• Flickr >500 mashups recorded
• YouTube >415 mashups recorded
• Amazon >315 mashups recorded
• Twitter >275 mashups recorded

the tale of the crazy collaborations

University of Washington
Computer Science Division
http://www.fold.it

stats on fold.it
• Study found folding teams do much better than
individuals
• >100,000 players in under 1 year
• A 13 year old non-scientist (no training) won
the folding competition

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
180,000 active volunteers and nearly 290,000 active
computers doing work!!

your future
looks bright...

the trick (& treat) is for
you to...

increase your
social capital
(whuffie - the currency of online communities)

turn the bullhorn around
• stop being ‘experts’ and start interacting
• watch, listen and learn from what your
audience needs
• collect data on what your readers share and
interact with and tweak

become part of the community
• become more collaborative and open
• discuss articles in progress with twitter
followers, facebook fans, etc.
• read and link to blogs that are on topic
• really figure out what people are interested in/
talking about by being social on the SNs

create amazing experiences
• create information out of passion
• simplify complex stories (infographics, stats,
etc.)
• inject more fun into your content
• create social interactions between readers
• let people personalize their experience

embrace the chaos
• let go of control; offer APIs, widgets, etc.
• get experimental! (i.e. try things without
knowing the results beforehand)
• learn from other industries and the successes of
the hyper-viral
• put a human face on your product

find your higher purpose
• think customer centrically: put your audience’s
success at the core of every decision you make
• get behind the passions of the community; or
• promote something bigger than your own work
(equal access to education?)
• get involved in your local community events

there are many more reasons
to celebrate
than fear the social web

the end

tara ‘missrogue’ hunt
author, The Whuffie Factor
http://www.horsepigcow.com
http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com
p. 514-679-2951
e. horsepigcow@gmail.com
t. twitter.com/missrogue

share/remix/spread ...but don’t forget to
attribute
http://slideshare.net/missrogue