Simon Waldman of the Guardian takes a look at participatory media and sees two striking contrasts in unfolding models in powerful people, or people power? First, a classic debate of the showcased A-List vs. the Long Tail:
The more I learn (and frankly, I still feel pretty dumb in these
matters), and the more I look, the more I realise that blogging’s great
legacy is likely to not the individuals who sit at the top of the power curve, but the incomprehensible swarm: and, critically, the order that emerges from it.
Second, blog citizen’s media vs. aggregation:
But, there are problems with this model: and they all stem from issues of scalability of communities and the tragedy of the commons. OhMyNews, is fantastic, but it still has an editorial staff of 53 (about the same as the NYT site). Even the Northwest Voice has a full time editor (both to give it shape and cover topics such as property). Wikipedia might have let anyone write or edit anything, but it takes a tightly defined social order and significant efforts from some very committed volunteers to keep everything in shape.. You can always cover much more ground by ceding traditional editorial control systems - or opening them up - but someone still has to stop it turning
into anarchy.
The aggregation of Blogdex et al, however is completely scalable: because it simply depends on individuals keeping their house in order: which they do out of self interest, rather than altruism (and, in my experience, it is always safer to rely on people acting out of self interest than altruism). Also, as the overall pool
of blogging grows: both in quantity and quality, aggregation becomes simultaneously more necessary and more efficient.
While we should celebrate both forms as participation at scale we haven’t had before, we should recognize that these forms will converge. They both involve human editing of a sort. Aggregation is vertical information assembly where the editor codes. Citizen’s media is horizontal information assembly where the editor, made even more clear in the Wikinews model that appends a more formal editorial process to the end of emergent practice. The two will work in tandem.
Just as a Technorati Watchlist of a blogger’s Cosmos can inform the editorial gaze of a blogger, aggregation will feed the higher value human judgment. Higher value both in how value is added and perceived — its harder to trust an algorithm than person, no matter how branded.
An algorithm may have been conceived to address complexity and volatility, but the same genesis is its very undoing over time unless branded recalibration is managed appropriately. While an index can be a common point of meaning (e.g. the Dow), you gain greater affinity for an organization or individual who interprets where it is going (e.g. broker). Each shock leads to new models that are opportunities for new entrants. In this market of memes, anyone can be a broker, analyst or quant with the right skills and desire — and the right moment of entry.
My point is really the middle of the road. Aggregation will augment Citizen’s Media as it needs to scale. Editorial process will augment emergent practice. The long tail will wag the dog. If we will it to.
1. Zbigniew Lukasiak on December 15, 2004 8:42 AM writes...
What we need is a platform for networking of aggregation tools. So that each aggregation could be treated just as another source, and we could easily aggregate aggregations made by other people.
Currently other bloggers need to blog about something they have read in theirs aggregations for us to get this info in our aggregations. But first they might have not enough to add to the original to justify reading of that additional post, second it takes time for them to write a note. An automatic system would be much more efficient. And since each aggregator would be steered manually by an individual it would retain the advantage of human feedback.
This is generally the idea I called Social Routing (http://zby.aster.net.pl/kwiki/index.cgi?SocialRouting)
Permalink to Comment2. Joe on December 15, 2004 12:10 PM writes...
I'll second the motion.
Permalink to Comment3. Evelyn on December 15, 2004 2:12 PM writes...
I agree.
Permalink to Comment4. Ross Mayfield on December 15, 2004 10:30 PM writes...
You mean the Internet? ;-)
I actually appreciate the friction in the current system, where human effort is required to amplify, which keeps it efficient by other measures.
Permalink to Comment5. Zbigniew Lukasiak on December 16, 2004 5:26 AM writes...
I see it differently. I would rather take the human effort as constant, as we have only that amount of time for work, and view the automation as the amplification factor applied to this constant. So the more automation there is the more work is done with every human move.
So currently to circulate a meme I need to
1. think if it is good enough to blog it
2. get to the blog (that might be a few clicks or with 'Blog this' just one)
3. think about what to write
4. write my own thoughts
5. add links (this might be automated with 'Blog This' or could take quite a few clicks)
6. save it
Compared to
1. Think if it is good enough to circulate it
2. save it to a channel
This is about 3 times faster - so this system would be 3 times more efficient. I think 3 times is much.
Of course this was only to show the line of thinking, the actual analyzis would have to be done much more thoroughly, but let's take it as a possible analyzis.
Permalink to Comment6. Ross Mayfield on December 17, 2004 12:06 AM writes...
Zbigniew, I think its a good idea. However, the human effort that is the greatest constraint is our attention.
Today with many aggregators you can go directly from reading a post to posting it on multiple blogs. What happens is people repost full posts. While its passing on signal, its adding noise, not signal -- leading to false positive trackbacks, technoratis and to a degree referrals. Things that are hard to unsubscribe from or filter.
Some have gone further, like Robin Good, to suggest a form of aggregated blogging where the blogger's role is calibrating filters.
The way I linkblog with del.icio.us is a happy medium. Low threshold links. Read something, click a bookmarklet, maybe alter the description -- tag it and bag it, you have done your part.
Permalink to Comment