reading list
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under academic, books, web 2.0
Recently, we have seen an onslaught of books about social media and its impact on society and (somewhat more importantly) business. Some of these accounts are more academic, some are more pop. My idea is to give you a sketch on those, which I read for my thesis. The working title is “Economic Value of User-Generated Content”, that is I am interested in the content from the aspect of labor, which is why I was looking at both web 2.0 optimists and critics.
Wikinomics – Anthony Williams and Don Tapscott
Don Tapscott is a famous Internet consultant, author of books such as Growing Up Digital, Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. Him and Williams use the platforms such as Wikipedia, del.ic.ous or Facebook to explain that an economy based on the principles on which these applications run (openness, sharing, peering and global perspective) will introduce a new way of production which will overshadow traditional corporate business organization, due to its decentralizing character, process of innovation and research, as well as decision making, enabled by Internet technology.
In a typical business-like manner, Tapscott&Williams are telling you “if you do not adjust, you will sink”. Good examples include huge companies such as Boing or cooperation between IBM and Open source community, but what is distracting is mixing up social networks or folksonomies such as Facebook, del.ic.ous, Flickr or YouTube with corporate business models. People participating are not receiving any compensation, when any of these platforms is put onto a market place.
We-Think – Charles Leadbeater
Leadbeater follows in the same footpath, stating that sharing will not simply change a way of production, but will have effect on democracy, equality and freedom. He praises sharing practices of Linux, citizen journalism platforms and Wikipedia (the first and last are used in every single book of this kind). Not bringing any new outlook on things, (if you want more on democracy and freedom, check out Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks), it can easily be skipped.
Here Comes Everybody – Clay Shirky
Shirky explores something that will be later called “crowdsourcing”, which he calls the power of organizing without organizations. He basically explains how things occur in social media, focusing on yet unexplored examples and dispels the myth of mass collaboration (or its value), demonstrating how architecture of participation operates using Power Law of contribution (which basically is the same curve used in “long-tail” model, very high in the beginning, then dropping, with the curve, extending almost infinitely). Recommendation for everyone interested in social dynamics in networks.
Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture – Geert Lovink
After all these promises (some totally ungrounded), it is refreshing to read someone, who takes a slightly ironical perspective. Lovink questions the rise of amateurs, so hyped by everyone else, stating that it will not
be corporations, who will suffer (instead they will profit on free contributions), but freelance professionals, “creative underclass”, artists or activists. Furthermore, he reminds that smart-mob tactics are not used only for overthrowing dictators, they can be deployed by gangsters (Sao Paolo PCC gang) or terrorists (people blogging on the murder of Theo Van Gogh).
Blogging is the focus of the book and Lovink is trying to asses it critically – according to him, blogs are not breeding dialogical culture, but closed communities (preaching to the choir syndrome), Google Ad Sense (Google itself with its constant data mining) is turning us into “a civilian network of informants”. Lovink’s conclusion is that societies accepted internet technologies, but it did not change them in fundamental way.
The book I waited for four weeks to arrive from US Amazon ( a new copy is unavailable in the UK) is Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage by Axel Bruns.
It really looks deep into the phenomena of produsage (production + usage) or prosumtion (production + consumption), which are the dominant practices on the web today. Will come back with impressions, it is big (400 pages) and I am on page 50.
Tags: free labor, MA thesis, produsage, web 2.0, wikinomics we-think clay shirky geert lovink blogging
November 28th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Most have been in the business for many years, and offer a high level of expertise and professionalism. Jobs
November 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
That may as well be right, but that is not my point. I am not looking at the business viability of so many user-generated content projects, for the people monetizing on it (platforms owners, people who buy Flickr or whatever), I am interested in the valuation of the work people do. And their motivations.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
thanks for this. i need to be reminded that i am behind on my reading. as i speak, er, comment, i’m downloading this: http://www.thepublicdomain.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-public-domain.pdf
this should also be interesting. ambitious, eh? http://thesocialmediabible.com/
December 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Can I suggest that for a book that predicted much of the stuff we’re now talking about you check out The Cluetrain Manifesto? It was written by a bunch of people, including Clay Shirky.
http://www.cluetrain.com/