Session slides used in the seminar. Some material pulled from lecture content. Emphasis on crowsourcing

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

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

3. 3

4. 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

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

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

7. We‐think?
• Sharing of informaYon via Internet
– improves creaYvity
– improves ideas
– improves innovaYon
– improves democracy
– h5p://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qiP79vYsdo
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8. Crowdsourcing?
• Outsourcing of ideas
to a large undefined
group
– open calls for help
– the hive mind
– collecYve problem
solving
– cheap!
8

9. Crowdsourcing?
• Outsourcing of ideas
to a large undefined
group
– open calls for help
– the hive mind
– collecYve problem
solving
– cheap!
9

10. Crowdsourcing?
• Outsourcing of ideas
to a large undefined
group
– open calls for help
– the hive mind
– collecYve problem
solving
– cheap!
10

11. Crowdsourcing?
• Outsourcing of ideas
to a large undefined
group
– open calls for help
– the hive mind
– collecYve problem
solving
– cheap!
11

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

13. 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

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

15. Cri3cisms?
• Reliability?
15

16. 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

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

18. 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
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19. Search for…
• White House …
19

20. Search for…
• Miserable failure
20

21. Wisdom of crowds?
21

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

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

24. 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
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