Peer Production, Social Media, and Web 2.0

After reading (for the second time) Professor Gallaugher's take on peer production and social media, I had so many thoughts regarding how this reading relates to our class. Even after just one class discussion, I came across countless sections of this chapter that touched upon the important points that my classmates and I drew from Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” video.


One quotation that particularly stood out to me and made the clearest connection to our initial discussion was toward the end of the chapter in the section on Twitter and the Rise of Microblogging. Gallaugher quotes Paul Saffo, who said about posting short messages on Twitter, that “instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.” Immediately I thought about Shirky’s four-rung ladder enabled by social media, the first rung of which he named Sharing. By sharing through twitter posts, groups no longer have to be coordinated in advance or pre-organized before sharing—people create their own groups based on what is being shared via social media platforms, such as, in this case, Twitter. Groups form after sharing has already taken place—no wonder Shirky quoted “ridiculously easy group formation” in his video! Nonetheless, reading this and analyzing the inextricable link between the quote and our class discussion led me to thinking…Do you think that groups that form themselves, as Saffo describes, are any better or worse than groups that are coordinated before sharing? This definitely has left me wondering whether there are any benefits or drawbacks, besides, of course, the obvious simplicity with which you can find members to add to your group.


To all my teachers in the past who have told me that Wikipedia is not a valid source of information—you all stand corrected! Little did you know about wisdom of the crowd; a theory that a group of individuals collectively has more insight than a single or small group of trained professionals--the very theory that gives Wikipedia validity. According to Gallaugher “The larger and more active a wiki community, the more likely it is that content will be up-to-date and that errors will be quickly corrected. Several studies have shown that large community wiki entries are as or more accurate than professional publication counterparts.” I don't have much to write on this besides that it will shock me no matter how many times I read it or hear it, simply because it has been ingrained in my mind for so long that Wikipedia shouldn’t be used for research and other information! Wikis are best used as stepping stones to other useful and reliable books/sources.



Something else that stuck with me from the text was Gallaugher’s discussion of blogs as a form of social media. As we discussed in class about social effects becoming interesting when technology gets boring, blogs have become sort of passé, an almost obsolete thing of the past. For this reason, I was shocked to read that “from humble beginnings, the blogging phenomenon has grown to a point where the number of public blogs…has surpassed one hundred million.” Honestly, until my cousin started writing a blog about a year or so ago, I barely even knew what a blog was or that anyone actually had one. Never mind knowing that they were so popular and widely used...(That just goes to show that I really knew little to nothing about technology and social media until I took Professor Kane’s Computer’s in Management class last spring). As I discovered when asked to create a blog of my own, many blogging sites are free, which is convenient for corporate use. Similarly, there are no deadlines or limits on pages/words, which makes blogging inherently useful for not only passionate individuals but also businesses that are trying to create competitive advantage. It is no surprise, then, that the once popular mainstream media, such as newspapers and magazines, are turning to the internet, specifically social media and Web 2.0 tools, in order to enhance their content in such a way that they attract those in search of greater detail on a topic of interest.


To further discuss the use of social media for competitive advantage, I would highlight the importance of companies regulating what is posted using these tools because of the widespread influence that the internet has in today’s day and age. Because using blogs, wikis, microblogs, and social networking has become a big part of various firms’ attempts at encouraging customer engagement, managers must keep in mind that the company’s brand will undoubtedly be impacted whether for better or for worse. In fact, Gallaugher notes that there are businesses that hire specialists specifically for “mining these sites for customer ideas, innovation, and feedback” as well as editing the content and commentary. This leads me to the point that I feel we will inevitably discuss in class, about technology and social media being a double-edged sword. One downfall of these seemingly beneficial tools is that the bad spreads just as easily as the good, something Gallaugher describes as “viral.” I liked these points that were made in the reading about the responsibility of companies using social media because, as our society lingers through the hype cycle of emerging technology, we often get wrapped up in excitement without recognizing what could go wrong and what disadvantages these tools may bring. Therefore, reading this chapter and blogging about it has left me hungry for more news about the negatives of social media. Let me know if you find anything!