Utilising crowds in Business
What does that mean for business models? For Shirky in the old Gutenberg economic model (publisher decides what is distributed in order to make money) the risk is born by the publisher. What the internet has done is allow anyone can publish to anyone (less risk less cost) anyone can say anything to anyone. It's too much content to corral, instead of why publish something? it is now why not publish something?
Because there is no economic/efficient way to control what gets published, so instead it is better to allow content to get out there and then choose what is of interest and therefore value. Also consider that even though some information out there is in public, the content might not be for public consumption - think twitter or your average blog
One of Shirky's final examples (which I love) is the story of how long suffering Josh Wheedon fans (long suffering because all the popular programmes that Wheedon makes get cancelled). With his latest venture, Doll House due to air in 2009, the fans have this time takend the initiative and have already started a "save the show" group. Cynical maybe, but they figure why wait until that decision is made? By then it will be too little too late, they don't trust the official marketing department so have instead become an unofficial one.
The old divisions of information management content producers have gone said Shirky, or are at least disappearing, it means that everyone involved can move across these boundaries.
So with these horizons and no boundaries what is the next thing to do? For Shirky, its about discovery and innovation. "Explore, try new things there is no obvious roadmap
he said, "It's a period of experimentation not transition".
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