Social software brings groups together to discover and create value. The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users with not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value. But patterns have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence. To illustrate this, lets explore the Power Law of Participation:
production, where intelligence is largely artificial. Amazonian algorythms guide users down the long tail from Britney Spears to Nobodys, made available without the constraints of shelf space. But the interesting question is consumption is active for consumers turned users.
Permission to Participate. Conucopia of the Commons -- the act of using the database adds value to it. As users engage in low threshold participation (read, favorite, tag and link) we gain a form of collective intelligence. But it is important to distinguish the value of collaborative intelligence, as first pointed out by Mitch Kapor:...Tons of interesting types of collaborative filtering, like Digg, is TiVo like, indicating individual preferences, with some algorythm logic. Valid and interesting, but people are not connecting. Different from a bunch of people focusing on creating something. That is higher value than collaborative filtering, my thesis, if you can get people to work together. Look at health information, broadly speaking, why are doctors not collaborating to build such a resource -- the lack of information, locked up in a database that Harvard publishes, kills people. I can feel the opportunity...When users participate in high enagement activities, connecting with one another, a different kind of value is being created. But my core point isn't just the difference between these forms of group intelligence -- but actually how the co-exist in the best communities. In Wikipedia, 500 people, or 0.5% of users, account for 50% of the edits. This core community is actively dedicated to maintaining an open periphery. Part of what makes Flickr work isn't just excellence at low threshold engagement, but the ability to form groups. Participation in communities plots along a core/periphery model -- provided social software supports both low threshold participation and high engagement. Yahoo! My Web Technorati: Socialtext, an emerging provider of Enterprise Social Software that dramatically increases group productivity and develops a group memory. He also writes
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