Techdirt. Stories filed under "communities"

Techdirt. Stories filed under "communities" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "communities"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:48:52 PST Jon Stewart Promises To Study Up On SOPA Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120112/02382817382/jon-stewart-promises-to-study-up-sopa.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120112/02382817382/jon-stewart-promises-to-study-up-sopa.shtml The Daily Show on Wednesday evening... and asked Reddit what he should ask Jon Stewart about SOPA/PIPA if he could. And... at the pre-show Q&A, he was able to say:

"the internet sent me to ask you what you think of SOPA and why you haven't mentioned it on the show."

Stewart basically admitted he hadn't heard of it, asked if it had anything to do with net neutrality, and then admitted that they all "had their heads up their asses" due to focusing on election stuff. However, he apparently also looked at one of the show's writers, and promised to research the issue.

And then... in the opening to the show Stewart actually cracked a joke about it (video below), where he joked that the next night's guest would be "the internet" and then said "we'll be all SOPA what?!?" and then noted:

Here's all I'll say about that: I've got some reading to catch up on...

Please do, Jon. Please do.

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]]> internet-has-asked... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120112/02382817382 Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:21:11 PST Reddit's Altruism Compared To 4chan's Trollism Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101113/22385711859/reddit-s-altruism-compared-to-4chan-s-trollism.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101113/22385711859/reddit-s-altruism-compared-to-4chan-s-trollism.shtml Reddit makes me like people I've never met, while Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life. While I believe the quote actually started with Twitter in place of Reddit, there's certainly an element of truth there (no matter which service you're talking about). Mathew Ingram points us to an excellent listing of some amazing stories of altruism performed by the Reddit community. The post lists out 25 separate -- and often quite amazing -- stories of true altruism from the Reddit community. It's really quite an uplifting piece, and if you've spent time in the Reddit community, you're sure to recognize many of these stories.

It's also a nice antidote to all the claims we hear from people who think that the "online mobs" out there only perform acts of malice and attacks. Of course, stories of such things are often dominated by stories of sites like 4chan. But what really strikes me about all of this is that in my experience, it often feels like there are many of the same people who hang out on both sites. While I'm sure there are many who spend time on one or the other, in the Venn Diagram of both communities, I would imagine there's a fair bit of overlap. And yet, people always talk about how the 4chan (mainly /b/) community is the worst of the worst when it comes to doing despicable things, and here's a situation in which perhaps the very same people are seen doing amazing things. There's even one "crossover" story, involving a situation that originated on 4chan, where someone had posted an image of an upcoming 90th birthday party of a guy who... looked a bit lonely in the picture (his family later denied this...). However, both the 4chan and the Reddit communities jumped onto this and decided to "cheer the guy up," sending him tons of presents, and even having a bunch of folks (from both communities) show up at his party.

I'm not sure exactly what this all means, but it does seem like the rather simplistic story you often hear in the media about the "hurtful" nature of online communities is often ignoring that the very same people can be amazingly helpful at times as well.

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]]> but-are-they-the-same-people? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101113/22385711859 Thu, 5 Feb 2009 01:13:08 PST Dear Newspapers: Focus On Enabling Your Community; Not Whining About Who Owes You Money Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090204/0155043639.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090204/0155043639.shtml force someone else to pay, rather than give people a reason to buy. This distinction is pretty important.

Take, for example, this column by Gary Storch, explaining why newspapers need to start charging online. Media mogul Steven Brill is also arguing the same thing (which is doubly amusing since Brill tried and failed to get people to pay for content online). I won't go through the long list of arguments of why that's silly (that's been done before), but just note that the focus is on "newspapers need to charge," and not on "what can we provide that someone's willing to pay for." That's rather important, because it's pretty clear that just charging for news won't get enough people to pay. Next up, is Peter Orsig's rather confused demand that Google rescue newspapers (again, not a new idea by any means). That column had numerous factual problems -- torn to shreds nicely by both Mark Potts and Mathew Ingram. Again, though, the issue is that the focus is on just getting someone else (Google, instead of readers this time) to hand over money, rather than figuring out a way to improve their product in a way that anyone would choose willingly to give them money.

This theme seems to run through much of the discussion around newspapers and business models. Even as they're doing a better and job attracting an online audience, you almost never hear of newspapers looking for ways to better serve that community in a manner that offers up things they want to pay for. Instead, it's all about coming up with ways to demand money, as if it's something they're owed. They're not, and they're discovering that day by day, even if they're unwilling to admit it.

It's time for newspapers to start looking at ways they can add value and give someone, whether individuals, sponsors or others, a good reason to give them money. So far they're failing, and a big part why is that they still view their readers as an "audience" rather than a community. That's why they do little to enable that community to do more, instead focusing on passing down the word from on high. That's not how communities work, and the end result is the mess that so many newspapers are facing today.

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]]> trying-this-again http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090204/0155043639 Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:33:00 PDT Online Communities More Important To Guys Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081020/0154262583.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081020/0154262583.shtml showing that, on average, men tend to feel stronger connections with online communities. Of course, the report doesn't seem to explore why that is. It could potentially have something to do with the fact that early on, the internet really was male-dominated, and the community structures fit better with typical male interactions. It will be interesting to see if this remains the same, or if, over time, there are better forms of community that allow both men and women to feel equally strongly connected to their online communities.

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]]> don't-make-me-leave-my-WoW-buddies http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081020/0154262583 Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:33:00 PDT Is Web 2.0 About Exploitation Or Empowerment? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081013/0118202528.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081013/0118202528.shtml Web 2.0 "fan communities" are really about exploitation or empowerment. This is a question we've addressed before, given that web 2.0 critics, such as Nicholas Carr, like to ignore that there are non-monetary benefits in the economy, and thus assume that any activity done for reasons other than money are exploitation.

The paper takes a balanced look at the Swedish independent music scene, which relies heavily on fan communities to act as filters and promoters of the music. The record labels don't focus so much on "selling music" so much as building up attention that can then be monetized in many different ways. Thus, they encourage fans to share and promote their music for them. So, is this use of fans exploitation?

The paper shows that, contrary to the "exploitation" view, the fans often get plenty of value out of the whole process, if not directly in monetary terms. As the paper notes, the concept of "exploitation" suggests a cost to the participant, but if they get more out of participating than they give up, then it hardly seems like exploitation. Instead, it's a reasonable choice in a non-monetary market, where they get more value than they put in. Plus, the paper notes that some of the fan participants eventually do make some money out of their efforts as well. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise. There are plenty of folks who became highly involved in a hobby and are eventually able to turn that into a business.

But the bigger issue for many fans, is simply being able to build relationships with the musicians they love -- and with other fans. To them, that's worth a lot more than money, and it's hard to see how building strong relationships and friendships can be seen as exploitation.

On top of that, the paper notes that the fans also make use of certain strategies to make sure -- implicitly or explicitly -- that they're not being exploited. In other words, whether they realize it or not, they're aware at some level of the possibility of being exploited by the situation, and they make certain choices to protect against that possibility. Overall, a very interesting paper that's worth reading, and I look forward to more research on this topic.

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]]> an-academic-look http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081013/0118202528