Harnessing Collective Intelligence
Tim O'Reilly: Everything will be connected as we move toward a Web 2.0 world, where the network is the platform.
Jim Buckmaster , Richard Rosenblatt , Toni Schneider , Owen Van Natta
User generated content (UGC). Collaboration.
Tim: Jim, at Craig's List, how did you accomplish so much with only 20 some employees?
Jim: Put the users to work for you.
Tim: How do you listen to millions of customers with only 23 employees?
Jim: Employees start talking about the good ideas.
Tim: How did it start?
Jim: Craig started as a hobby, and it grew.
Tim: Richard, you did something interesting things at MySpace. Tell us what you are doing at Demand Media.
Richard: We learned from MySpace that UGC was a tremendous opportunity. You can build a media company based on UGC. We are seeing tremendous growth in the 35-plus (age group?). At Demand Media, we are targeting a specific area. Hiking and Outdoor Sports - more about sharing knowledge than pictures.
Tim: DM is a way to bring MySpace type functionality into vertical markets.
Richard: We'll do this through a suite of tools that will help with the publishing. We just launched weHow, similar to eHow, to let anyone become an expert on anything. Launched in just two weeks. Allows the contributor to get paid.
Tim: Venture capital - you raised $20MM. Many say it doesn't take much to get started.
Richard: We raised the money in two rounds and bought 9 companies. Consider Trail. We added the UGC tools to allow people to expand the content from just hiking to kayaking, etc.
Tim: Toni about getting started.
Toni: We are extremely focused on our users, and turning them into collaborators. It's about bringing people in and letting them contribute. The libertarian model of software development. Everything is open to the users. New themes and providing support to one another. What we have learned is that we can take the principals of open source and apply them in the company.
Tim: Collective intelligence is about UGC.
Toni: Wish we could stop using UGC. It doesn't describe everything. Consider our spam effort. We have seen a doubling of spam on our blogs in the last 3 weeks. Let the centralized server learn from the feedback of users -- but it's not UGC.
Tim: Owen, talk about Facebook. What did you learn at Amazon that you brought with you?
Owen: Facebook increases the information flow around people. We build the tools, platforms, and vessels that let the users to communicate and share information. It is highly effective. In terms of what we do as a company. What we brought from Amazon. Our founder is very user centric. Jeff Bezos wants to be the most customer-centric company in the world.
Tim: Many are moving from MySpace to Facebook. Why? Or, is that true?
Owen: I'm not sure that is true. Our tools and platform are allowing people to come together in a way that was not possible [this is Web 2.0].
Richard: Roll out features based on the marketing.
Tim: What's the biggest thing you learned?
Toni: When trying to bring in users and get them to collaborate, we realized you have to open things up and give up control. A lot of big companies still think closed systems will protect them. What you need to be able to do is give up control and hand it over to the users. Translation, for example. Let the users translate the documents. [Good idea.] Generally, very high quality. Very quick to achieve internationalization.
Richard: Don't believe when everybody tells you it's a bad idea. MySpace was poo-pooed. Focus on what you believe in and give the power to the users.
Jim: Listen to the users early and often. Cuban cigars for sale on Craig's List is the only area where they had to disagree with users. It's illegal.
Owen: Who you decide to put in charge of various areas. Lack of experience can be good. These people are not encumbered with the "it's not going to work" attitude. If I push hard to get the things on my agenda instead of letting the coooerative decide, we wouldn't have accomplished so much.
Q: Knowledge vs. opinion. What is the definition of intelligence?
A: Tim: Sturgeon's Law: 95% of science fiction is crap, well 95% of everything is crap. It's the 5% that matters. We are doing well to get to the 5% through user review. Toni added the users encourage relevance. Excitement grows around what's really relevant.
Q: What sorts of things are you doing outside of UGC?
A: Owen: Facebook has launched Share, which allows users to share information with other users. It allows from collaboration and commentary, then others can share with others. Enabling people to have more control over the sharing of information.
Q: Amazing communities are doing the heavy lifting. How do you view your role?
A: Richard: We have two roles: 1) provide the best tools and technologies, structure and format, which promotes the creation of UGC. Everyone wants to publish but they don't know how. 2) We need to police the activity to keep disruptive people out who would otherwise spoil the experience. Owen added: We need to give the people the control of the information and the sharing of the information (openness). Toni (?): We need to understand user behavior.
Jim Buckmaster , Richard Rosenblatt , Toni Schneider , Owen Van Natta
User generated content (UGC). Collaboration.
Tim: Jim, at Craig's List, how did you accomplish so much with only 20 some employees?
Jim: Put the users to work for you.
Tim: How do you listen to millions of customers with only 23 employees?
Jim: Employees start talking about the good ideas.
Tim: How did it start?
Jim: Craig started as a hobby, and it grew.
Tim: Richard, you did something interesting things at MySpace. Tell us what you are doing at Demand Media.
Richard: We learned from MySpace that UGC was a tremendous opportunity. You can build a media company based on UGC. We are seeing tremendous growth in the 35-plus (age group?). At Demand Media, we are targeting a specific area. Hiking and Outdoor Sports - more about sharing knowledge than pictures.
Tim: DM is a way to bring MySpace type functionality into vertical markets.
Richard: We'll do this through a suite of tools that will help with the publishing. We just launched weHow, similar to eHow, to let anyone become an expert on anything. Launched in just two weeks. Allows the contributor to get paid.
Tim: Venture capital - you raised $20MM. Many say it doesn't take much to get started.
Richard: We raised the money in two rounds and bought 9 companies. Consider Trail. We added the UGC tools to allow people to expand the content from just hiking to kayaking, etc.
Tim: Toni about getting started.
Toni: We are extremely focused on our users, and turning them into collaborators. It's about bringing people in and letting them contribute. The libertarian model of software development. Everything is open to the users. New themes and providing support to one another. What we have learned is that we can take the principals of open source and apply them in the company.
Tim: Collective intelligence is about UGC.
Toni: Wish we could stop using UGC. It doesn't describe everything. Consider our spam effort. We have seen a doubling of spam on our blogs in the last 3 weeks. Let the centralized server learn from the feedback of users -- but it's not UGC.
Tim: Owen, talk about Facebook. What did you learn at Amazon that you brought with you?
Owen: Facebook increases the information flow around people. We build the tools, platforms, and vessels that let the users to communicate and share information. It is highly effective. In terms of what we do as a company. What we brought from Amazon. Our founder is very user centric. Jeff Bezos wants to be the most customer-centric company in the world.
Tim: Many are moving from MySpace to Facebook. Why? Or, is that true?
Owen: I'm not sure that is true. Our tools and platform are allowing people to come together in a way that was not possible [this is Web 2.0].
Richard: Roll out features based on the marketing.
Tim: What's the biggest thing you learned?
Toni: When trying to bring in users and get them to collaborate, we realized you have to open things up and give up control. A lot of big companies still think closed systems will protect them. What you need to be able to do is give up control and hand it over to the users. Translation, for example. Let the users translate the documents. [Good idea.] Generally, very high quality. Very quick to achieve internationalization.
Richard: Don't believe when everybody tells you it's a bad idea. MySpace was poo-pooed. Focus on what you believe in and give the power to the users.
Jim: Listen to the users early and often. Cuban cigars for sale on Craig's List is the only area where they had to disagree with users. It's illegal.
Owen: Who you decide to put in charge of various areas. Lack of experience can be good. These people are not encumbered with the "it's not going to work" attitude. If I push hard to get the things on my agenda instead of letting the coooerative decide, we wouldn't have accomplished so much.
Q: Knowledge vs. opinion. What is the definition of intelligence?
A: Tim: Sturgeon's Law: 95% of science fiction is crap, well 95% of everything is crap. It's the 5% that matters. We are doing well to get to the 5% through user review. Toni added the users encourage relevance. Excitement grows around what's really relevant.
Q: What sorts of things are you doing outside of UGC?
A: Owen: Facebook has launched Share, which allows users to share information with other users. It allows from collaboration and commentary, then others can share with others. Enabling people to have more control over the sharing of information.
Q: Amazing communities are doing the heavy lifting. How do you view your role?
A: Richard: We have two roles: 1) provide the best tools and technologies, structure and format, which promotes the creation of UGC. Everyone wants to publish but they don't know how. 2) We need to police the activity to keep disruptive people out who would otherwise spoil the experience. Owen added: We need to give the people the control of the information and the sharing of the information (openness). Toni (?): We need to understand user behavior.
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