The J.P. Allen Blog

How web 2.0 solves the knowledge sharing problem

What really impresses me about the big Web 2.0 sites is how they use familiar metaphors in new ways. By starting from what we already know (such as profiles, groups, ratings, and ‘friends’), people naturally understand why it might be useful, fun, and easy to add their own online contributions. Kind of like how the blog metaphor liberated personal websites from the more difficult and foreign notion of the ‘home page’.

I’ve written a short exploratory paper on the contrast between the ‘abundance’ of knowledge sharing in Web 2.0 communities, and the ’scarcity’ of knowledge sharing that is predicted by much of the academic literature. The academic research, mostly done inside organizations, usually finds that people are really, really reluctant to share any knowledge online–what’s in it for me, they ask? So they see it as a ‘public goods’ problem. According to this thinking, there’s no reason to share valuable knowledge when you can ‘free-ride’ off the contributions of others. People have to be rewarded, or else they won’t share.

Web 2.0 communities don’t have that problem–people share, a lot! So it’s time to change the knowledge sharing problem from ‘how to bribe people’ to ‘how to turn all this peer-based sharing into useful knowledge’.

(As an aside, I think this is one reason why wikis are still challenging–there are plenty of empty wikis out there. Our ’shared document’ and ‘version control’ metaphors aren’t nearly as widespread, or as well-developed, as simple metaphors like comments or ratings.)

A version of this paper will be presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS-08) in June.

Why everyone is Macworld crazy

Why the obsession with Macworld? The iPhone is hot, of course, and Macs are great machines. Steve Jobs is the 21st century genius of tech marketing. But there has to be something more fundamental to explain how Macworld can simultaneously overshadow the entire consumer electronics industry at CES, and the retirement of Bill Gates.

I think everyone’s crazy for Apple because people are desperate for consumer electronics innovation. Exciting, innovative, easy-to-use software was supposed to be the future of consumer electronics. But who else besides Apple is really delivering?

The Wall Street Journal argued a few years ago (”Power Switch”, 3/10/05; see my letter to the editor published in the WSJ here) that American companies were finally making headway in the Asian-dominated consumer electronics industry because of their superior software skills. They provided three examples: iPods, Kodak EasyShare cameras, and Palm organizers. Fast forward to 2008, and it looks like Apple is the only game in town.

The consumer electronics companies are giving us 150-inch plasma screens and screaming fast wireless routers, but where’s the software innovation? Which universities are providing the great ideas? Which venture firms will touch the consumer electronics space? Which companies are focusing on important consumer tasks, and making them easier from start to finish? People want iPhone or iPod-like design in their future, not the nightmarish menu system on my new big-screen monitor.