If anyone was interested in what Jason Calacanis was saying about wikipedia, you should definitely check out the book The Long Tail. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, wrote it and he describes the current culture we are living ("the long tail" of culture) in which niche markets and interests are growing at exponential rate due mostly in part to the internet. There is an entire chapter which looks at wikipedia as a case study and describes how it is a fairly accurate source of information built entirely my "amateur" internet users. The book is very relevant to yesterday's discussion and to our class as a whole in general.
2 comments:
but let's not ignore the wealth of criticism this book has received. while I think its universally true that audiences have fragmented into niche markets, his fundamental assumption regarding the ability to mine the "long tail" has been questioned. it turns out a great of his math is pretty "wonky:" http://www.theregister.com/2006/07/27/debunking_long_tail_maths/
the Wired article
I generally agree with it, or at least believe that it should be taken into consideration when we look at the future of how the sale of media and intellectual property will operate.
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