Closing up the day:
Had a lecture on user-generated content from Scott Porad of ICanHazCheezburger.com which was a good introduction to the theories of UGC and viral content. It was a bit too general for me, but for those who are new to the notions of the “Wisdom of Crowds” or “SmartMobs”, it was a good little presentation. The main points:
- User-generated content is not new. Academic journals and other classical forms of media have used it.
- By using the crowd, you are more likely to hit. He used the example of guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar. If one person guesses, they are probably not going to be right, even when using their best judgment. However, if many people make a guess using their best judgment and you roll the guesses into a averaging function, you are going to get closer and closer to the right answer with each guess. This is how the user-generated voting systems work to bring us content we want to see.
I wish he would have talked more about their voting algorithms and how they avoid the gaming so prevalent on sites like Digg and so on.
Right now on the stage is John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla, talking about building open-source projects that can make viable business and technological systems. His main points:
- Asking the question “How to build a successful open source project” is too big. It becomes meaningless. Every project is different.
- When building and engaging a community to build a project, increase the inner circle. Let everyone who wants to participate, participate. “Surprise alienates.”
- Community are not customers, they are citizens, and the best citizens challenge the status quo and are “huge pains in the asses”.
- Engaged citizens are noisy (insert slide of Chris Messina). Chris made an hour-long video which tore Mozilla a new one over what was wrong with what they were doing…apparently Mr. Lilly, while of course upset by such an intense criticism, reacted like a champ and took the criticisms to heart.
- “The web is central (but it is at risk)”.
- The web is forking among technologies that are improving at different rates.
- Companies are trying to lock the web into traditional bindings between manufacturers, service providers, and software providers, a la Ma Bell or AT&T. This must be avoided.
- “On the web, you don’t need to ask anyone for permission”. (just build it)
That’s probably it for the night, hope you all got something out of it.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“On the web, you don’t need to ask anyone for permission”. (just build it)
So true. Comment on Mozilla, I love and hate them. Nothing is worse than the mozilla crash reporter.
Great post, I agree with the point you made about algorithm’s. to be able to build with those factors art our finger tips would make life much easier.
Your second point is also incredibly important “Let everyone who wants to participate, participate.” That in itself makes a site much more engaging and the more comment’s or “speaker’s” the more informative.
Well written.
Thanks, Garret! It’s hard to get out good posts when liveblogging, especially at major events.