UPDATE: apologies for the delay, we had originally intended to post the slides inline with the chat log, but everyone has been too busy to run through the chat log- Marv.
NOTICE: Some Residents did not give permission to have their comments published, the chat log has been edited accordingly.
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:05] so, while Gwynneth gets organized
- Freedom Rush
[12:05] what the…
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:05] just a few points
- Resident A
[12:05] Publication permission denied.
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:05] I once again have my l33t TYranscriptPermissionGetterSpamBot running
- starcomber Vig
[12:05] me is following a roman mosquito
[12:05] then it got slippery
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:06] which will aks you for permission to include your comments in the published transcript
[12:06] let me know if it starts going out of control, and I will turn it off
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:06] these chairs are a bit awkward, lol
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:06] other than that, welcome to this Kuurian Expedition meeting
- Freedom Rush
[12:06] esh
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:06] i’m fine to have it published.
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:07] where we are very fortunate to have Gwyneth Llewellyn
- Second Life
[12:07] SignpostMarv Martin is back
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:07] and Bingham roundfield
[12:07] leading a discussion on crowdsourcing
[12:07] so, whenevr you’re ready G!
- Biji Kuu
[12:07] star – what are you doing?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:07] Thanks, Poinky
- starcomber Vig
[12:07] sorry?
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:07] rock rock on.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:08] First, I should like to thank the Kuurian Expedition in Second Life to organise these interesting things, and I’m honoured to have been asked to do one of those
[12:08] And secondly, of course, thank you, Bingham, for coming to this meetings as well!
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:08] my pleasure!
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:09] Bingham, which might better be known for his RL alter ego "Jeff Howe", is credited to having coined the word "crowdsourcing" :)
[12:09] … and he has already been around here for a while, explaining what it is about.
[12:09] So, if I say utter nonsense,
[12:09] he’ll be here to correct me hehe
[12:09] The format for today’s "conference" will be rather informal.
[12:09] I’ll be showing some slides, which sometimes take a bit to rez ? they’re just behind me
[12:10] I don’t like copying & pasting from notecards,
[12:10] so bear with me as we quickly go nthrough the major concepts behind "crowdsourcing"
[12:10] Those slides also raise a few questions.
[12:10] Bingham here will attempt to answer them (he he)
[12:10] … and then it’s up to you guys. This is much more fun if you actively participate.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:10] agreeed!
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:11] Anyone disagreeing with this format, will be fed to the lions. So there!
- Second Life
[12:11] Cherub Spectre is glad shes skinny.. so lions wont want her
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:11] BTW I should also thank the government of Colonia Nova and Neufreistadt to let us use this brand new Theatre :)
- Second Life
[12:11] Troy McLuhan checks to make sure his lion shield is still up
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:11] hehe Troy.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:11] Not a problem. :P
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:12] Ok… you’ll hear today many familiar concepts
[12:12] and a few unfamiliar ones
[12:12] I hope that by relating how crowdsourcing is both similar to some ways but different,
[12:12] you can better understand what we’re talking about.
[12:12] So, crowdsourcing, for a company, is "similar" to outsourcing ?
[12:13] in teh sense that people are hired "outside" the company to do some tasks
[12:13] The difference will be mostly on the *way* these people contribute to the company’s services/products
[12:13] Crowdsourcing is often done by *end-users*… but we’ll see it in a moment.
[12:14] Jeff Howe has proposed these 5 rules (points at slide in the back) to explain what crowdsourcing ? "the new labour pool" is about.
[12:14] let’s see them briefly one by one.
[12:14] First, the concept that this can be a "global" endeavour.
[12:14] Crowdsourced labour can be "anywhere"
[12:14] it is done remotely
[12:15] most often through the Internet
[12:15] more often than not, from people’s homes…
[12:15] … or in their shor breaks between work hehe
[12:15] And often, well, the company doesn’t even know the names of who’s working for them. :)
[12:15] The trick for this bto work is to break up a large task ? a project
[12:15] in many many micro-tasks
[12:15] "micro-chunks"
[12:16] so each takes a few minutes to complete
[12:16] these are so tiny,
[12:16] that individually, each costs very very little
[12:16] globally, if we’re talking about each person contributing hundreds of thousands of time
[12:16] we can build easily huge projects that way
[12:17] The idea of crowdsourcing is that "the end-user is clever"
[12:17] often they know MORE than the people in the company!
[12:17] (does this ring familiar to you? :) )
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:17] heh
- Resident A
[12:17] Publication permission denied.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:17] could i make slight tweak?
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:17] sounds like SL’s volunteer program to me :-P
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:17] but… the company is still important in this process: they provide the organisation
- Resident B
[12:17] Publication permission denied.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:17] Sure Bingham ? feel free to drop in any time!
[12:18] Bingham? :)
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:18] i think crowdsourcing does involve the assumption that an end-user is smart and creative and, more to th epoint, capable of producing something of value for a company or institution or what have you, BUT
[12:19] it’s the size and diversity of the potential labor pool that gives crowdsourcing such potency
[12:19] sorry to interrupt
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:19] Oh no, I’m glad you did, lol
[12:19] Thanks for the clarification :)
[12:20] Actually, that leads to the nice phrase I’m quoting from you,
[12:20] 90% of everything done is crap
[12:20] also known as "Sturgeon’s Revelation", Sturgeon, for the ones not knowing him, being a famous science fiction author
[12:21] who is quoted to have referred to all artistic production in the world as being "90% crap" hehe
[12:21] So. This means that a company has to understand this "self-evident truth" and be aware of it.
[12:21] To successfully pool the work being "contributed" by the crowdsourced labour workforce,
[12:21] they have to employ filters and methods to separate what is good, and what is worthless.
[12:22] Still…. since the crowd CAn be a HUGE workforce,
[12:22] in absolute numbers ? it means you’ll definitely get something out of it!
[12:22] An alternative: let the users choose what works best for them!
[12:22] Some possible methods: use ratings, comments
[12:23] let them tell the company what they like and what they don’t
[12:23] get rid of what doesn’t work for them ? use what is most liked by them!
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:23] to jump in
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:23] (we’ll definitely use some examples later and discuss this one hehe)
- Poinky Malaprop
[12:24] I understand the SL rating system works really well
- Resident B
[12:24] Publication permission denied.
- Second Life
[12:24] Entered chat range by Timeless Prototype
[12:24] SignpostMarv Martin laughs
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:24] i think if the crowd has proven itself adept at anything, it’s the ability to winnow out the quality from teh crud.
- Rez Menoptra
[12:24] *cough*
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:25] which fails to explain the continued success of most popular music, but I digress. <_<
- Resident B
[12:25] Publication permission denied.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:25] hehe ok… just a few more comparisons
[12:25] I’ve tried to put on the next slide
- Delia Lake
[12:25] hmmm…
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:25] a few possible approaches to "work"
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:25] no, Aliasi, that’s an excellent point, and one we should return to
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:25] from in-house…
[12:25] … to outsourcing…
- Second Life
[12:25] Ashcroft Burnham agrees with Aliasi about popular music
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:25] … to crowdsourcing…
[12:25] … to open source
[12:26] I won’t go through them all. But you’ll see that there is some overlap to each approach.
[12:26] (and you can all read the slide much faster than I can type anyway!)
[12:26] Ok!
[12:26] Any questions so far?
- Delia Lake
[12:27] so in a way, to avoid the sink hole of group think, crowd sourcing might work best when the people doing the work do not know each other?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:27] I have started with three questions myself… we’ll try to see if we can answer them….
[12:27] Delia ? good point… usually, in most crowdsourcing projects, we have seen immense numbers of people working on the same project
[12:28] spread around the globe.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:28] there’s some evidence that’s true, Delia, tho it’s complicated and dependent on the specific example
- Second Life
[12:28] SignpostMarv Martin has a question
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:28] I wonder, Bingham, if the sheer numbers will make Della’s point "always true" to an extent?
[12:28] Go for it, Marv!
- Ashcroft Burnham
[12:28] I have a question: do you think that Linux is a good or a bad example of what opensource development can achieve?
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:29] depends on the yardstick.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:29] Forgive me if this sounds a bit odd, but isn’t "crowdsourcing" just a web 2.0 term for "mass volunteer work" ?
- starcomber Vig
[12:29] he aspect of "isolation" is not necessarily good in my opinion
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:29] whoa…
- starcomber Vig
[12:29] confrontation always help selectin and assuring that competition exists within a "crowd"
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:29] eek. which question first?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:29] Ok :) One at the time.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:30] or should i just pick?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:30] In turn, Ashcroft’s first (although Linux, as the open source operating system, is "open source" really)
[12:31] (and then the question if crowdsourcing is "volunteer" work ? I think that should be explained as well, it is NOT volunteer work, people get PAID for it)
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:31] this one’s easy: is "crowdsourcing" a less wieldy way of describing the social/peer/collaborative nature of production in a wide array of fields right now?
[12:31] yes.
[12:31] buzzword?
- Second Life
[12:31] SignpostMarv Martin gets paid for his volunteer work
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:31] sure.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:31] or has rather
[12:32] (yay for free money from the government :-D )
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:32] BUT … important point, crowdsourcing generally isn’t volunteer labor.
- Ashcroft Burnham
[12:32] Ahh, on volunteer work… I keep on my pocket computer a list of funny quotes that I overhear from day to day. One of them is, "Look, you can get paid volunteer work, okay?"
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:32] not even in SL
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:32] Exactly… not even here!
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:33] Live Help is volunteering and drawing on a crowd of people as a source for tech support
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:33] Although, since you use SL as an example, it can be "vastly cheaper than paying for it normally" labor.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:33] yeah, Live Help is interesting …
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:33] The word there is "cheap", Aliasi.
- Justice Soothsayer
[12:33] no. here many pay for the privilege of being the labour pool
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:33] Not "free".
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:33] same with the Scripters of Second Life group
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:33] VASTLY cheaper.
[12:33] and Linden isn’t paying anyone directly, really
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:33] neither of those get paid
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:34] I dunno, getting paid a L$1k pittance – or the L$500 instructor stipend that got recently discontinued…
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:34] is that not crowd sourcing ?
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:34] but by characterizing it as "voluneteer" labor we miss the point
- Resident B
[12:34] Publication permission denied.
- Troy McLuhan
[12:34] LL was paying instructors L$500 per class
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:34] No, lol, but you can think the following… "together" we’re collaborating to do LL a huge "favour" by filling this world with content
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:34] you definitely ain’t doing it for the money. I might point out most of the Confederation of Democratic Sims (i.e., HERE) is much like this.
- Latonia Lambert
[12:34] Is Second Life the only example where crowdsourcing occurs
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:34] so, there is an insane number of hours of work put into this
[12:34] but people get paid! A lfew L$ here and there.
[12:34] *few
[12:35] add those up, and we’re talking billions of US$ per year.
[12:35] which LL is NOT spending.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:35] crowdsourcing defeinately seems like a buzzword rather than a concept :-P
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:35] the reputation economy trafficks in real coin
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:35] (ignore the typo)
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:35] Ah Bingham ? could you perhaps than explain some good examples of crowdsourcing? I mean, Second Life/Linden Lab is just one example which is way below the radar
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:36] True, LL is very clever, they’re paying credit which OTHER people pay to turn into cash.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:36] WSJ did a front-page article *today* on crowdsourcing
- Troy McLuhan
[12:36] Yes, more examples please
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:36] and people are very much selflishly motivated to perform a task that will not pay them in dollars.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:36] WSJ ?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:36] Wall Street Journal
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:36] really? i had no idea …
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:36] they gave the example today of Zimbra
[12:36] a crowdsourcing project for a competitor to MS Exchange
- Second Life
[12:36] SignpostMarv Martin waits for Slashdot to report it two weeks later
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:37] well… but there are far more
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:37] many.
[12:37] should i run through some?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:37] (actually, if Bingham weren’t in SL, I think taht people would not even listen SL as crowdsourcing!)
[12:37] Please!
- Troy McLuhan
[12:37] Yes
- Latonia Lambert
[12:38] I would like to hear other examples on the same scale as SL
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:38] Perhaps Amazon’s Mechanical Turk first?
- Justice Soothsayer
[12:38] SETI?
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:38] sure: MT allows companies to post menial tasks that computers can’t perform
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:39] SETI > Mass Volunteerism
[12:39] SETI@home rather
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:39] then any ol person can log onto MT and make a few extra dollars by transcribing podcasts, say,
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:39] (MT = Mechanical Turk)
- starcomber Vig
[12:39] SETI is brute power w/o selection at any level
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:39] or identiifying objects, or addresses in photographs
- starcomber Vig
[12:39] Amazon was able to implement well a "recommend" system that works for them
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:40] another: Threadless is a T-Shirt retailer whose designs are call created by the community of roughly
[12:40] 300,000 users, many of them professional or amateur graphic designers.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:40] Some good designs on there :-)
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:41] threadless is brilliant. great, great stuff.
[12:41] more:
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:41] /no
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:41] unlike Cafepress, threadless have a physical store
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:41] oops
[12:41] Sorry.. please go ahead, Bingham!
- Ashcroft Burnham
[12:42] Did I miss an answer to the question about Linux?
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:42] Innocentive is a similar network that matches up scientists with companies that have R&D problems their staffs can’t solve. with a network of 90,000 scientists
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:42] although threadless’s position on user-created content IP rights isn’t as nice as the one Linden Lab has
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:42] what Innocentive clients are getting is, essentially, the potency of diversity.
- Resident B
[12:42] Publication permission denied.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:42] That’s it in a nutshell, Soj!
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:43] the most telling aspect of Innocentive is that there’s a positive correlation between succsful solutions and "distance from field," which is to say, unfamiliarity with the area the problem may technically rest in
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:43] That’s interesting…
- Grace McDunnough
[12:43] It also leverages the "Medicci Effect"
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:43] it goes on: the Netlfix prize? i’d call that crowdsourcing
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:44] Is widely re-used Creative Commons media a form of crowd sourcing ?
- Troy McLuhan
[12:44] If 90% of the creations are crap, but only one person does each job on MT, does that mean 90% of jobs done on MT will be done crappily?
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:44] Marv: Agreed! on threadless and IP
[12:45] Troy: MT has indeed had problems wiith quality control
[12:45] tho in tasks that menial, perhaps the ratio is lower
- Rez Menoptra
[12:45] That’s sorta the way it would sound, Troy
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:46] Sturgeon’s Revelation is true of most crowdsourcing examples. not all…
[12:46] can i go back to Marv’s comment about Threadless IP policy?
- Rez Menoptra
[12:47] sure, I think we’d be interested to hear it
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:47] hehe. I had to email them to ask about it because it wasn’t immediately clear on the site
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:47] as far as i know … and, full disclosure here, i simply can’t track all of these incredibly disparate fields at one time
[12:47] BUT
[12:48] i’m pretty sure SkinnyCorp has kept all the IP underlying the designs its sold over the last five years.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:48] If Linden Lab had the same policy,
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:48] and that raises some real concerns. now, the designers are stoked when they win
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:48] they would be allowed to sell your content if you quit SL
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:49] this gets back to my stmt about reputation economy being a strong motivator
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:49] meaning they could sell Starley’s wand and keep all the money
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:49] (And they also get, i think it’s up to $1500 for each winning design).
- Grace McDunnough
[12:49] Isn’t that the model that There.com has?
- Rez Menoptra
[12:49] which is peanuts in relation to how much sells, i’d think
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:49] similarly, Linden Lab could’ve given Donnerwood Media the IP rights to Tringo themselves
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:50] but the contributors need to question whether they’re getting a fair shaek
[12:50] shake
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:50] or, they could’ve resold the IP rights to get a proper, multi-player version done :-P
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:50] hehe
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:50] oh, who did have IP rights to Tringo, please?
[12:50] i’ve been wanting to know…
- Latonia Lambert
[12:50] Kermit
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:50] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_%28Second_Life%29#K_-_O
- Rez Menoptra
[12:50] haha yeah, kermit’s all i can come up with too
- Latonia Lambert
[12:50] will check his last name
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:51] Kermitt Qurik – Nathan Keir, developer of the game Tringo. Keir licensed the game to Donnerwood Media, however retains rights to the game inside Second Life.
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:51] okay.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:51] I should probably get around to adding Starley to that list sometime soon :-D
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:51] interesting.
- Rez Menoptra
[12:51] Starley, or STarax?
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:52] Starax sorry
[12:52] getting confused with names
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:52] do you all think that generally the core SL community feels a)
- Latonia Lambert
[12:52] Kermit Quirk is his name
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:52] Starax, yeah. don’t make me call a tran on you.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:52] mr wand guy
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:52] adquately compensated for their contributions, and
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:52] *train
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:52] the SL community can sell their content
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:52] b) as if they are able to exercise a voice in the developmentand growth of SL?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:52] Oh… I know that around a thousand users get indeed a comfortable living out of their … erm… "contributed content" :)
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:52] so if they’re not getting adequatly compensated, their content or marketing sucks
- Aliasi Stonebender
[12:53] Yeah, unlike those other examples, residents keep the rights to their IP, LL just has (according to the ToS) the right to use your work for SL purposes.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:53] If you all don’t mind,
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:53] that’s what i thought …
- Rez Menoptra
[12:53] but b) i think is more iffy
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:53] I’ll slightly change the subject to make you guys think a bit about something else :)
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:53] the community also has a strong ability to change the development and progression of Second Life
- Latonia Lambert
[12:53] Residents do not get a say in the development of the platform
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:53] right.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:53] Let’s move away a bit from SL,
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:53] if you’ll allow me to tp out, I shall show you how they did it :-P
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:53] and go a "step backwards"
[12:53] and take a look at what all those Web 2.0 sites are doing.
[12:54] Look at bloggr.com or wordpress.com
[12:54] where people contribute content
- Second Life
[12:54] SignpostMarv Martin uses WordPress.com
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:54] they get a few US$ from ads, through Google AdSWense
[12:54] oops
[12:54] *AdSense
[12:54] so hmm
[12:54] there is VAST amount of "contributed content" out there
[12:54] … underpaid, of course
[12:54] but hmm
[12:54] it seems to be a similar model, don’t you think?
[12:55] Ok… YouTube is different…. it’s really "user-contributed content", unpaid
- Grace McDunnough
[12:55] Yes of course it is.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:55] Ah
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:55] whew … now this is a can of worms.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:55] I’ve remembered something the BBC covered
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:55] hehe Bingham :)
[12:55] But with blogs, you’re able to get SOMETHING out of it.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:55] Citizen Journalism
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:55] what i’d like to do
[12:56] is lay out two definitions for crowdsourcing.
- Grace McDunnough
[12:56] You are able to get something out of it IF you have meaningful and relevant content – -just like SL, I’d argue.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:56] There are services on the net where peeps can post footage of news events, and news agencies, TV stations etc will pay for it
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:56] the one we employed for the original Wired article, which was fairly narrow
- Grace McDunnough
[12:56] Revver is an example where you can share in the revenue — more of a pay for performance model.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:56] Fuego!
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:56] and the broader one that has emerged via, well, the crowd
- Second Life
[12:56] SignpostMarv Martin points to himself
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:57] Ah, good example, Grace!
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:57] we did NOT include MySpace, wordpress.com or Youtube in the article
- SignpostMarv Martin
[12:57] this is how the community changed the course of Second Life development- setting fire to themselves in the welcome areas to get rid of the taxation system
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:57] yes :D
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:57] because we defined CS as the act
[12:58] of taking a task ONCE performed by employees, and outsourcing it to a large, generally undefined
[12:58] group of people in the form of an open call.
[12:58] so threadless (which we didn’t use, fwiw), falls under that rubric
- Second Life
[12:59] Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:59] MySpace, which could and would have never used employees to create it’s chief product, does not.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:59] Aaah
- Second Life
[12:59] starcomber Vig wonders to which extent LL is implementing that re the help system
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[12:59] That is a very important distinction, I think!
[12:59] mm hmm starcomber
- Bingham Roundfield
[12:59] of course, this can get messy.
[13:00] what about blog providers? how different are they from a newspaper model?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:00] so technically, "Second Life" the product is not TRUE crowdsourcing, although many parts of it are (in the sense that LL did not hire more designers to do content, but got residents to do it for them instead)
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:00] hmmm
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:00] Second Life is a platform, and people do crowdsourcing on the platform
[13:00] not everyone, but some people
- Grace McDunnough
[13:00] Bingham, I’s like to know if you’ve considere a different perspective on crowd sourcing with respect to innovation — that is, getting the consumer to actually develop new product ideas.
[13:01] *I’d
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:01] i’ve always thought of SL as pretty pure crowdsourcing. LL could have gone the route of dumping $50 – $100 million into game development, hiring a huge staff of developers and designers and then hoping to create compelling enough content for people to co
[13:02] to come … instead they just threw up an infrastructure and said, we leave it to you.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:02] I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:02] cough
[13:02] game development ?
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:02] It’s like looking at the World Wide Web as ‘crowdsourcing’.
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:02] World of Warcraft and SL make for interesting comparisons in this regard
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:02] Not individual companies USING the Web, but the Web itself in toto.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:02] Hmm good argument
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:02] dude, make your mind up whether or not you’re going to call SL a game *points to your blog
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:02] But there is not really "an organisation" behind the World-Wide Web
- starcomber Vig
[13:02] tricky
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:03] At what point is it a fancy buzzword, and at what point is it simply people fulfilling their wants and desires naturally?
[13:03] *shrug* Then the Internet at large, which at least USED to be primarily a couple of major organizations.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:03] Oh! I would argue, Aliasi, that the issue here is if a *company* uses this model to provide products and services.
[13:03] (company, or organisation)
[13:03] If the users by themselves do it,
[13:04] on their own I mean,
[13:04] I would probably argue that it’s not "crowdsourcing"
- starcomber Vig
[13:04] you are eliminating one of the endpoints here Gwyn
[13:04] so is not
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:04] but… very likely, something akin to "open source projects", which emerge "spontaneously" and very often have "nobody" behind them
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:04] not so tricky … SL was started by a single organizztion we recognize as a company, which continues to control it.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:05] Exactly.
- starcomber Vig
[13:05] in fact the infrastructure is still (and will continue to be) pretty centralized
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:05] but i’ll toss out a larger point: crowdsourcing is being widely mis-used
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:05] oooh how so? :)
- Poinky Malaprop
[13:05] I think the flip side to this is whether individual can leave the traditional employment model and earn a living by contributing to dozens (or hundreds) of crowdsourcing projects
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:05] OTOH, things like libSL and LL’s continued desire to eventually open up SL make me think there’s a blurry line there.
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:05] just not in the case of SL, imho
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:05] Linden Lab are to SL as the DoD is to ARPAnet
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:06] Good point, Poinky
- starcomber Vig
[13:06] lol
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:06] Since LL often derives no direct benefit.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:06] and hmm Marv ? we wish that to be true in the future, but right now, Second Life is Linden Lab’s core business.
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:06] Aliasi … true enough. it COULD get blurry, but doesn’t seem like it is yet.
[13:06] i’ve thought about this because the metaverse is really more or a new continent in its way.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:07] hehe
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:07] and not simply one company’s propeerty
[13:07] but that’s why the question of how SLers are compensated, and the degree to which they can help govern are very important issues.
[13:07] and important in other crowdsourcing models as well.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:08] Ok hmm we’re over our hour now.
- Ashcroft Burnham
[13:08] Could LL one day make money primarily by providing services *in* S:?
[13:08] SL?
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:08] While I’d be glad to stay around for longer, I’m not sure if Bingham is able to do so :)
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:08] hell no
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:08] In SL’s case in particular, I’d note LL only makes money from (a) premium accounts and (b) private sims.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:08] hah
[13:08] the residents’ work is better than theirs
- Rez Menoptra
[13:08] agreed, marv
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:08] oh, and (c) Lindex.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:08] So should we go on for a bit longer??
- Something Something
[13:08] Aliasi: LL also makes a surprising amount of money from L$10 uploads
- starcomber Vig
[13:08] sure
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:08] Bingham, how is your availability?
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:09] i’m afraid i do have to run …
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:09] that’s why they have the Residents make bids for InfoHubs
[13:09] and for the SLRR stations
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:09] Ok. So hmm
- Rez Menoptra
[13:09] well, ty for coming, bingham
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:09] let me just thank Bingham for having come here today.
[13:09] You have some links and pointers to both his blog and some references
- Poinky Malaprop
[13:09] yes, thanks bingham!
- Resident B
[13:09] Publication permission denied.
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:09] but i’d just like to say, i really appreciate the spirit of the debate here.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:09] Something: They make jack shit from L$10 uploads.
- starcomber Vig
[13:09] than you Bingham
- Resident B
[13:09] Publication permission denied.
- Latonia Lambert
[13:09] thank you for finding time to come and talk to us
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:09] Then, of course, I should thank *you* all for coming!
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:09] it’s a great forum
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:10] I’m hoping Poinky has a log ready for me to publish :-P
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:10] The L$ is worth nothing to Linden Lab.
- Something Something
[13:10] Aliasi: nope, they make quite a bit… I’ll look up the references
- Rez Menoptra
[13:10] they make all of my stipend and more a week on uploads from me, alasi
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:10] No, Something.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:10] Philip stated himself that the Residents are making profit, and Linden Lab aren’t
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:10] and i’m interested in tackling these questions on my blog if anyone wants to come and heckle me there.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:10] They make US$ from the Lindex sales which they happen to tie to sinks such as L$10 uploads.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:10] hehe yes ? www.crowdsourcing.com (shameless plug!!)
- Something Something
[13:10] I believe Philip Linden mentioned it in an audio interview with Adam Reuters, and the Economic Statistics page may also bear it out
- Bingham Roundfield
[13:10] thanks, Gwyn, and thank you all for coming …
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:10] this is not the same thing as making money FROM the uploads.
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:10] check your IMs plz Bingham
- Something Something
[13:10] Well, that’s a technicality
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:11] It’s not, Something.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:11] Thanks also to Poinky and the Kuurian Expedition in Second Life for organising these events ? people, make sure you look them up.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:11] They don’t *have* to tie their sales to the sinks.
- Something Something
[13:11] Every L$ that is "sunk" means that they can print another L$ to sell on Lindex
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:11] They do so purely as an economy-control measure.
- Something Something
[13:11] without creating inflation
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:11] Ok. Is it time for throwing the audience to the lions? :D
- Poinky Malaprop
[13:11] thanks all for coming – we’ll try to get a transcript out as soon as possible
- starcomber Vig
[13:11] bring em on
- Ashcroft Burnham
[13:11] Lions! :-D
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:11] hehe
- Second Life
[13:11] Multi Gadget v1.49.3 by Timeless Prototype
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:12] haha
- Rez Menoptra
[13:12] whaaa
- Grace McDunnough
[13:12] Singpost, you are crazy
- starcomber Vig
[13:12] feed the cats
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:12] Yes :)
- starcomber Vig
[13:12] lol
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:12] oooh lions!
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:12] rawr
- starcomber Vig
[13:12] ehi take pics
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:12] here kitty kitty kitty
[13:13] No, Ashcroft, but I can *return* them :)
[13:13] yay let’s crash this sim!
- Delia Lake
[13:13] oops! lions. gladi can fly
- Resident A
[13:13] Publication permission denied.
- Aliasi Stonebender
[13:13] bah!
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:13] actually hmm I wonder how bad was the lag in the audience?
- Resident A
[13:13] Publication permission denied.
- Rez Menoptra
[13:13] haha scope
- SignpostMarv Martin
[13:13] had some chat bubbles
- Resident A
[13:13] Publication permission denied.
- Rez Menoptra
[13:14] i heary ou
[13:14] hey hey
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:14] Aye, good work, Scope, and thanks for coming!
- Delia Lake
[13:14] thanks, Gwyneth
- Antonius Camus
[13:14] sometimes a bit of chat lag
- Resident A
[13:14] Publication permission denied.
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:14] thanks for coming, and for your good questions, Delia!
- Rez Menoptra
[13:14] yeah, for sure
- Resident A
[13:14] Publication permission denied.
- Delia Lake
[13:14] yes
- Rez Menoptra
[13:14] that’s gonna be a good one
- Poinky Malaprop
[13:14] ending transcript logging
- Rez Menoptra
[13:14] cool
[13:14] catch you later
- starcomber Vig
[13:14] see ya
- Gwyneth Llewelyn
[13:14] hehe ty Poinky!
