Peer Production, Social Media and Web 2.0

In reading Professor Gallaugher's chapter on peer production and social media, I found extensive overlap between not only our class and the text, but even more specifically, the text and our class discussion yesterday, which we based around "Here Comes Everybody".

The first aspect of the reading that related heavily to our discussion was again this idea of the antiquated and bland technology making for the most interesting social media implications. A very appropriate example, as I am posting on one right now, is the blog. The blog, once known as a medium for posting online diaries, has developed itself from very humble beginnings, to public blogs numbering in the hundreds of millions (no thanks to me). Blogs have been so common placed that "blogging is now a respected and influential medium". Over the course of the last ten years blogs have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. And now as they sit at the other spectrum things really start to get interesting. Who would have thought 20 years ago, even 5 years ago that newspapers would be dying out, however in the last few years online news content has increased exponentially, leaving their paper predecessors in the dust. And with no limits on page size, word count or publication date the sky is the limit when it comes to blogs. It is no surprise therefore, that in our need for detail and depth that mainstream media sources are supplementing their content with blogs. Who knew blogs could have a hand in bringing down the NYT?

Further expanding upon this idea is the sheer size and success demonstrated by Wikipedia. One of the widest known Wikis in cyberspace, Wikipedia, like all other wikis, stems from the simple idea of "what you see is what you get". It is upon this simple platform that a highly accurate home to the wisdom of the crowds has spawned and contrary to popular belief, thanks to an active and up-to-date wiki community, is very accurate. The excessive amount of not only information, but accurate information, could never be possible if it weren't for the relatively simple and collaborative nature of the wiki.

I would also like to draw further upon the idea of blogs policing companies, be it their performance, product or response to the social media scene. I was extremely intrigued by the portion of chapter 6 that briefly touched upon the rise of an entire industry, as a result of this shift to the web 2.0. Online reputation management has grown exponentially in the past few years as companies have discovered that failing to address the online community is as good as playing with fire. Monitoring social media commentary is no longer a part time job, it is a force to be reckoned with. As we move even further into the depths of social media and online marketing, management of a corporation's image will rely even more heavily upon this new industry and will demand even more techniques, tools and methodologies to allow companies to put their best foot forward both in print and on the web.

One final thing I would like to draw attention to is IBM's use of social networking, as it appears to be very pertinent to our classes experiment with virtual attendance. As much as 42% of IBM's workforce works from home, thus requiring employees to rely heavily upon social media tools and virtual work groups to make it easier to locate expertise and specialization within the firm. As I think about IBM, I think not only about our experiment in class, but ten years down the road when it could be the norm for students to "attend" lectures via their computers. Technology, as it has proven time and again, has the ability to take something as common-placed, required even, as attending class and make it an antiquated notion of the past.

Rating: I would rate this article at a 3.0-3.5. It is exceptionally applicable to our class and provides a lot of material and cross over examples. It is interesting, though long winded at times.