Mac281 Wikinomics Seminar

Wikinomics: the era of collabora3ve produc3on MAC281 seminar robert.jewi5@sunderland.ac.uk 1

Tradi3onal forms of collabora3ve ac3on 20th century •  Large scale projects •  Typically hierarchical •  Top‐down model •  Typically state or market led •  –  (see Shirky, 2008) 2

Government ID Cards steering group Project lead (eg IBM) DVLA Passports HMCR NI NHS Consultants Consultants Consultants Consultants Consultants Doc control Doc control Doc control Doc control Doc control Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out Tech roll out Test Test Test Test Test 4

Wikipedia Link editor Fact Text editor editor Regular contributors Hardcore contributors Image editor Wikipedia Casual users Staﬀ 5

New forms of collabora3on •  21st century •  Mass collaboraYon •  DemocraYc parYcipaYon 6

We‐think? •  Sharing of informaYon via Internet –  improves creaYvity –  improves ideas –  improves innovaYon –  improves democracy –  h5p://www.youtube.com/watch? v=qiP79vYsdo 7

Crowdsourcing? •  Outsourcing of ideas to a large undeﬁned group –  open calls for help –  the hive mind –  collecYve problem solving –  cheap! 8

Crowdsourcing? •  How do you count the stars? •  h5p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/ 7894071.stm 12

Wikipedia in ﬁgures 2001: 15,000 arYcles •  2009: 2.7 million+ arYcles •  1 million+ registered users •  100,000 users posted 10+ arYcles •  75,000 regular editors •  5,000 hardcore maintain site •  5 paid staﬀers •  –  See Tapsco5 & Williams, 2008: 72; h5p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Wikipedia 13

Wikipedia: how big is the crowd? Link editor Fact Text editor editor Regular contributors Hardcore contributors Image editor Wikipedia Casual users Staﬀ 14

Cri3cisms? •  Reliability? 15

Power of the crowd? •  Facebook ToS February 2009 –  h5p://consumerist.com/ 5150175/facebooks‐ new‐terms‐of‐service‐ we‐can‐do‐anything‐we‐ want‐with‐your‐content‐ forever 16

Examples of collec3ve produc3on BitTorrent swarms •  Second Life •  Distributed compuYng •  Google search •  Facebook •  Li5leBigPlanet •  Podzilla •  Lego Mindstorms •  17

Google search •  “Search engines like Google, which run on algorithms that rank results according to the number of previous searches, answer our search queries not with what is most true or most reliable, but merely what is most popular. As a result, our knowledge … is being shaped by nothing but the aggregaYon of responses. The search engine is a quanYtaYve historical records of previous responses” –  Andrew Keen ,2008: 92‐2 18

Search for… •  White House … 19

Search for… •  Miserable failure 20

Wisdom of crowds? 21

•  21st century is the era of mass collaboraYon •  CollaboraYon beneﬁts business and culture alike •  The crowd is a resource? •  DemocraYsing force? 22

Ques3ons •  Do the beneﬁts of crowdsourcing outweigh the problems? •  Is the future one of mass collaboraYon? 23

Sources and reading •  Digital Britain report, January 2009, h5p://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasYng/5631.aspx •  Jeﬀ Howe, 2008, Crowdsourcing: How the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, London: Random House Business Books. •  Andrew Keen, 2008, The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture and assaulAng our economy, London: Nicholas Brearly Publishing •  Charles Leadbe5er 2008, We‐Think: Mass innovaAon, not mass‐ producAon, London: Proﬁle Books Ltd. •  Clay Shirky, 2008: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without OrganizaAons, London: Allen Lane. •  James Surowiecki, 2005, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few, London: Abacus. •  Don Tapsoc5 & Anthony D. Williams, 2008, Wikinomics: How Mass CollaboraAon Changes Everything, London: AtlanYc Books 24

http://vista.sunderland.ac.uk	7
http://sunspace.sunderland.ac.uk	7
http://www.mobkarma.com	4
http://blog.santoshmaharshi.com	1

Mac281 Wikinomics Seminar

by Rob Jewitt on Mar 03, 2009

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Mac281 Wikinomics Seminar — Presentation Transcript