I work with strangers

The Web 2.0

The internet revolution is gaining momentum and quick with this rise of the “web 2.0″, in which everything is interactive, social, spawns communities, and is free to use. That mentality does not hold true for all of the sites on the new web, but it does for many of the popular widely used ones, and serves to contrast the “web 1.0″, which contained mostly static pages which informed, but did not allow for any great degree of social interaction. I remember being fascinated with the web at age 13 and wanting desperately to have my own website so I could write and post whatever I wanted on a global network. I picked up an HTML 4.0 book at Barnes and Nobles and began coding in notepad. After about 2 weeks of solid effort, I had a page with an introduction, a bio, and several randomly placed pictures of my favorite comic book characters. I also remember searching the web and finding many similar, just as poorly designed, websites made by fans of pretty much anything popular. They were all hosted by ISPs, or some free hosting company that threw ads all over your page, like Angelfire. I feel less special now that everyone I know has about 12 “web pages”, mainly consisting of blogs and network sites. What the web 2.0 really did was give not only allow people to view sites, but to manipulate them, add to them, subtract from them, in some way alter them, and to do so in a way that was centered around interaction and communities. Peer collaboration is that same interaction, but with a purpose, a goal, or visible result.

Mediated vs. Non Mediated Communication

In the past 15 years there have been many advances in information and communication technology which allow us to communicate via new media, at vary speeds, all with differnt levels of formality and types of etiquette. Each media is often used for a different purpose as well, such as videos on the web for the purpose of review, and text messaging for quick trivial communications. Each media has also spawned whole new sets of “social cues” (Donath, J.(2004). Sociable Media. In W.S. Bainbridge (ed.), Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire Publishing.) which we use to communicate with in different forms of these mediums. Donath notes the advent of “emoticons”, which are used in text based media, and consist of standard characters, and make a symbol which convey meaning, often emotion. Donath also mentions how the speed at which the communication takes place determines the level of formality in the message itself. She also states that Asynchronus media, or media in which communication does not take place simultaneously between parties, responses are also more formal. I do not fully agree with this though since technologies such as teleconferencing, video sessions, and instant messaging client are used formally in the business environment and still maintain a high level of formality. Donath hints at an important point though about all these new communication technologies in that we have the ability to communicate simultaneously with many people whom we know, yet be physically alone, and also to be surrounded by people physically and yet know no one. When are you more alone, or in greater company?

Out with traditional models, in with the new

The web as we know it today allows us to collaborate and produce with others ike never before. Everything from software to encyclopedias (http://www.wikipedia.com) is being produced by web users all over the world who do not know each other personally but share a common goal or interest. Tapscott refers to this process as “peer production” (Tapscott, D. & Williams, A. (2006). Wikinomics (Intro & cap. 1). New York: Portfolio.) In his text Tapscott mentions how businesses who recognize this growth of online communities and peer production and support it, using it to their advantage will survive, while those who resist it will have a much harder time. One example that quickly come to my mind is google, which left their Google Maps web application software open so that web programmers would create applications to work with it, feeding it information and yielding their desired response. There now exist several sort of mashup applications which combine Google’s application with their own (see my last post). Google recognized this concept of supporting online communities, the value of free open (semi) source apps, and encouraging development by outsiders.

This concept of peer production has allowed for what Tapscott refers to as “Wikinomics”, which refers to a new world where consumers no longer take a passive role, but instead collaberate with each other via the web in order to produce as well. Through Wikinomics, “prosumers” (Tapscott, 2006) now rival the industry world and develop their own alternatives to everything from software to media (news). They have also been able to cater to niche markets by opening online stores, such as ebay stores (http://www.ebay.com) which allow them to sell to consumers anywhere in the world, without brick and mortar. Not all prosumers rival industries though, they also aid them, such as the P&G chemistry department looking for new ideas from anyone who simply registers on their website. The company does offer cash incentives to develop useful ideas, so they are paying for being able to use the world’s knowledge, but are only paying one person. In essence, it’s kind of like having one super employee with the knowledge of the thousands who sign up.

The Information Economy

Over the last 15 years our society has exchanged information in great number of new ways, and over great distances, in great quantities, as high speeds. In his book (Benkler, Y. (2006). Wealth of Networks (c. 1, 7). New Haven: Yale University Press.) Benkler describes how pertinent information organization and creation is to our information economy, and how the rapid changes regarding these areas in the last 15 years will inevitably cause adaptation in our economic structure. He also mentions how peer production has caused industries to re-examine their current methods since consumers are now producing high quality alternatives to their own efforts. Although many of these peer produced products (PPP?) are indeed high in quality, it seems to me as though the industry can always take their product one step further in one aspect or another. In the case of software, the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/) is often a perfectly good alternative to using photoshop, but adobe provides support, and is an industry standard. If I am having trouble with photoshop there is a number, email, website, etc I can utilize in order to recieve help. There are forums for the GIMP, but, they do not reach the level of support you would recieve from adobe to my knowledge. The same goes for the media. I think people are still more likely to trust a major broadcasting station over a rouge webcast on the internet, even if it is a popular one. There are more dire consequences for a major station who gets their facts wrong than there for a webcast run by a bunch of collaborating amateurs who do the same. I don’t think all peer produced and open source alternative lack slightly in this way, MySQL and Apache are both industry standard level products, and are both open source peer productions.

Peer production has really attacked the niche and given people a reason to turn to products, shops, news, focusing on exactly what they want, when they want it, how they want it. Corporations’ biggest challenge over the next 10 years will be how to deal with this phenomenon, and compete against complete web based product customization offered by the peers.

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