The Business Experiment: What I Learned About the Limits of Peer Production, Wisdom of Crowds, and Other Web2.0 Philosophies

Rob May on The Business Experiment: "I have been promising a handful of people since March that I would write this post. Finally, after months of letting brew in the back of my mind, I think I am ready. Over the last 4 years I have..." [Read more]

Knowing Who

How to Save the World

Google has quietly announced that it has acquired Writely, a tool that simply allows users to use HTML as the standard for all document preparation (without having to learn HTML), and to share, collaborate and publish such documents to whomever they wish. In doing so, they have signaled that they understand the need to simplify desktop management the way they have simplified search, by burying all the complexity of document management and document transmission beneath a very simple meta-application. This is precisely what I have repeatedly called for to increase productivity of knowledge workers, encourage massively more sharing of important information, enable real-time collaboration and, most important, get the bulk of the 80% of the population still on the far side of the digital divide online and onside.

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The next great challenge for Google will be to simply the challenge of finding people (know-who) the way they have already simplified the challenge of finding information (know-what) and finding places (know-where). That means whether you're looking for an expert, a supplier, a business partner, a spouse, the Wisdom of Crowds, or a soul-mate, Google will get you there in one click. I have no doubt they are up to this challenge.

Inkling - The Wisdom of the Crowd Returns

Mashable!

I love all this wisdom of crowds stuff. Communities, networks and markets - they’re all fascinating (far more interesting, in fact, than the non-social web applications that increasingly fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella). Although rarely mentioned, prediction markets like the Yahoo Tech Buzz Game and Smarkets are probably the best examples of the wisdom of crowds in action - and much closer to Surowiecki’s theory than Digg or Reddit. (And let’s not forget about opinion polling sites like Vizu.) So now we’ve got another prediction market to kick the tires on - Inkling is an überslick service that lets you buy stocks in all kinds of upcoming events. From the site:

Inkling is an online marketplace where people buy and sell shares in stocks representing what they think will happen in the future. The stock with the highest price represents what the “crowd” thinks is going to happen. Inkling does not use real money. Traders exchange the “Inkle,” Inkling’s imaginary currency. The Inkling approach will work for all sorts of stuff. Product features, sales forecasts, pricing, fashion, finance, personal use, the list goes on and on. Inkling has been designed to be easy enough for our moms to use, but satisfying for stock market gurus as well.

Techdirt points out that these fake-money prediction markets aren’t as useful as real-money markets - and of course this is true. People just aren’t as motivated to vote (or vote in the right way) when the currency isn’t real.

Meanwhile, real-money markets like Tradesports and InTrade are making megabucks on the back of crowd wisdom. So why don’t we see more Tradesports-style markets? Why can’t I buy stocks in Web 2.0 companies (and we’re not talking about BlogShares or AlexaDex)? The simple answer is legality - IANAL, but it seems that prediction markets would be classed as betting, leading to all kinds of legal headaches.

Goethe on "action"

• “Doubt can only be removed by action.”
• “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”
• "One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going”
• “There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.”
• “Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine”
• “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

OpenBusiness

OpenBusiness is a platform to share and develop innovative Open Business ideas- entrepreneurial ideas which are built around openness, free services and free access. The two main aims of the project are to build an online resource of innovative business models, ideas and tools, and to publish an OpenBusiness Guidebook.

Links of relevance to TBE:

• Democratizing Innovation - A conversation between OpenBusiness and Eric von Hippel
• The Value of Attention
• The Business Plan Archive
• Public Knowledge

Your market

How to Find Untapped Needs: Clay Christensen in HBR reinforces a point that made last summer: Don't analyze your market by age and gender demographics, and your products by attributes, analyze your marker by affinity (community of common wants and needs) and your products by the tasks they do. Men aged 35-49 don't need a 1/8" drill -- do-it-yourselfers need a 1/8" hole. It is at the intersection of affinity and tasks that you'll find the untapped need, and all the clues you need on how to design the appropriate product and who to design it for.

LINKS:

• Business Innovation
• Click here to view the original Webpage.

How to tell the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Matthew Paul Thomas

Web 1.0

Web 2.0