Wikinomics

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything is a book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, first published in December 2006. It explores how some companies in the early 21st century have used mass collaboration (also called peer production) and open-source technology, such as wikis, to be successful.

About the Author

Don Tapscott is an internationally renowned authority, writer, consultant and speaker regarding the strategic impact of information technology on innovation, marketing and talent. He has authored or co-authored eleven widely read books on technology in business and society. His upcoming book is Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World (October 2008). Don sold his company New Paradigm in 2007 to nGenera where he is Chairman of the nGenera Innovation Network. He is Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Anthony D. Williams has been researching and writing about trends in technology and society for over a decade. His work has been featured in Business Week, the Globe and Mail and the Times of India and his advice sought by fortune 500 firms and international institutions, including the World Bank. Anthony holds a Masters in Research from the London School of Economics and is Vice President and Executive Editor at nGenera Insight.

Wikinomics explains how mass collaboration is happening not just on websites like Wikipedia and YouTube, but also at traditional companies that have embrased technology to breathe new life into their enterprises.

The Wikinomics Blog is produced by the team at nGenera Insight, a think tank headed by IT strategist, speaker, and best-selling author Don Tapscott. Since 1993 nGenera Insight has provided clients with insightful, thought-provoking analysis of emerging technology trends and their business impact. We serve as a “strategic early warning system” for our clients, helping them discern real imperatives from all the hype and noise.

Introduction

This media in the online blog is for the purpose of revision for the A2 summer Media exam.
We will be looking at at least two types of media as outlined by the OCR syllabus. Our chosen examples are Film and Social Networking.

1. We have looked at YouTube as an example of Media in the online age. Obviously, YouTube is a product of the internet and couldn't exist without it. We have looked at the different ways that people use YouTube and examples that illustrate this.

2. We have studied the theorist Michael Wesch and should be able to explain 'Cultural Inversion' and the 'Collapse of Context', in relation to how people use YouTube.

3. How people use YouTube differently to social networking sites like Facebook. We will also be asked about other networking sites like Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr etc

4. The next part of Media in the Online Age, we looked at Chris Anderson's Longtail Theory. This is the idea of many niche markets replacing the mass market. That is, selling less of more. Amazon, iTunes and LoveFilm are examples of businesses which illustrate this theory.

5. We next looked at Tapscott and Williams' "Wikinomics". We were asked to explain this. This is the theory, which explains how businesses have had to change in the online age. Media businesses we could consider are: LoveFilm, iTunes, HMV, Facebook, YouTube and Second Life etc.
We need to understand the terms:
Prosumer
Peering
Collaboration
Global Plant Floor
Ideagora
We can explain these on my blog and apply to the examples.

LongTail Theory

When consumers are offered infinite choice, the true shape of demand is revealed. And it turns out to be less hit-centric than we thought. People gravitate towards niches because they satisfy narrow interests better, and in one aspect of our life or another we all have some narrow interest (whether we think of it that way or not).
The Long Tail book is about the big-picture consequence of this: how our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to million of niches. It chronicles the effect of the technologies that have made it easier for consumers to find and buy niche products, thanks to the "infinite shelf-space effect"--the new distribution mechanisms, from digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets, that break through the bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail.
The Long Tail was popularized by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article, in which he mentioned Amazon.com and Netflix as examples of businesses applying this strategy.

The distribution and inventory costs of businesses successfully applying this strategy allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The total sales of this large number of "non-hit items" is called the Long Tail.

Given enough choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution. This suggests that a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items ("hits" or "head") against the other 80% ("non-hits" or "long tail").

A frequency distribution with a long tail has been studied by statisticians since at least 1946. The term has also been used in the insurance business for many years.

Anderson argues that products in low demand or that have a low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, the distribution and sales channel opportunities created by the Internet often enable businesses to tap that market successfully.

An Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday." Anderson has explained the term as a reference to the tail of a demand curve. The term has since been rederived from an XY graph that is created when charting popularity to inventory. In the graph shown above, Amazon's book sales or Netflix's movie rentals would be represented along the vertical axis, while the book or movie ranks are along the horizontal axis. The total volume of low popularity items exceeds the volume of high popularity items.

Cultural Inversion

Cultural Inversion

Users on YouTube and other social networking sites are alone as they are an individual user, however they are not alone as they are connected through a networked community.
YouTube is testing the term 'cultural inversion' because....

There a number of 'online communities', this includes:

• Facebook
• Twitter (can be described a micro blogging)
  
• YouTube
• MySpace
• Flickr
• Tumblr
• Bebo
• Blogger

'YouTube vs Facebook'

• Both sites are online communities, however Facebook is more of a community that YouTube will ever be
• Facebook is more personal as users can make their own profile with photographs and information about themselves. They can choose who they add as 'friends' and who they interact with. On the other hand, users of YouTube don't know who's watching their videos that they have uploaded and in what way they are being used. People can't choose to be people's 'friends' on YouTube they can only subscribe to their videos and different user's video channels. This means that they get updates when more videos are uploaded to the channel and what's new with it.
  

Facebook
'Independence and Relationships'
Ambient Awareness: The constant understanding and knowledge of what is occurring around us. Ambient awareness is a term used by social scientists to describe a new form of peripheral social awareness. This awareness is propagated from relatively constant contact with one's friends and colleagues via social networking platforms on the internet. Some examples of social networking websites are Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogger, etc. The term essentially defines the sort of omnipresent knowledge one experiences by being a regular user of these media outlets that allow a constant connection with one's social circle.

• Relationship status changes; people can find out about new relationships via Facebook before they are told in person,
• People can post too much information on their statuses or post pointless statuses
• Statuses can inform people of things happening such as school closures, new events
  

YouTube: Loss of Community through Networked Individualism

YouTube will be used as a case study for Media in the Online Age. iTunes and YouTube have been describe as 'metabuisness'; in the case of YouTube it is always changing. There is no common understanding of what it is or who it is for. It consists of both user generated content as well as advertising and products for companies.

The largest age group for youtube users is between the age range of 18-24 years-old, making up a huge 52% of the audience whilst the very young and old are, perhaps surprisingly, about equal-sized runners-up. The most common videos are home videos but an increasing amount of TV on demand is available along with skits, ‘mash-ups’, remixes, music videos, video diaries and a variety of others.

Despite only recently celebrating its fifth birthday, the sheer volume of youtube videos has led to some youtube ‘channels’ broadcasting more content in their last six months than some established TV channels in their entire history.

• TalkTalk adverts, featured on YouTube and on the Television, use user generated footage mixed with content from the company itself. This video enahances the extent that the product is more than what it seems and how these adverts have boosted sales through the use of Media in the Online Age. It is a way of expressing ourselves through the media and using the media as a powerful communication and marketing tool. http://vimeo.com/12371530
  


• Vlogs: Vlogs are video blogs. Vlogs that are on YouTube can vary from a number of subjects from personal life to celebrity culture. The vlogger is in a seemingly private place but having their vlog consumed by the public. There is often a collapse of context as the Vlogs are watched, commented on and remixed into new videos or as 'copycat vlogs'. Here is a typical YouTube Vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRVr5RHFxU
  


• "Hyper Self Awarness" basically means that anyone may be watching but there is anonymity in watching, nobody know who is watching your videos and vlogs at any point in time

Copycat videos- Collapse of Context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he5fpsmH_2g This is the original vidoe of "Charlie Bit My Finger" posted by 'kooljohnmason'. The video has become a huge YouTube hit and has spurred many people from across the world to create copycat videos. Here are some examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArwvQdID2kE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkhbvm5YOo&feature=related This second video is a remixed version of the original. It has a new video with sisters 'playing the part' of Charlie and his brother but they have mixed it so the voices and sounds of the original video are in the new video with the sisters miming to it.

Mash Ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chMy70U2T4U
This first mash up is Star Wars and Family Guy mixed together, with the visuals from Star Wars and the dialogue from Family Guy this mash up works fairly well.

Participation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZrrbgCdYc
This video is the advert for T Mobile. It is a participation video because it features the general public in an everyday situation at a train station but this situation is used by a company (T Mobile) in advertising it's product of a mobile phone. They have gone onto make a number of variations to the advert in different locations and with different 'narratives', and I have included some of the other examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orukqxeWmM0&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3NPNM4xgo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRF10wwdvo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z11vlAN4uBo