Technologies of Politics and Control - User contributions [en]

Trent Ostler Final Project

2008-04-29T23:59:16Z

Ternto333: /* Difficulty in harnessing power of the masses */

=== Motives of people to contribute online according to Kollock===
* Anticipated Reciprocity - A person is motivated to contribute valuable information to the group in the expectation that one will receive useful help and information in return
* Increased Recognition - Individuals want recognition for their contributions.
* Sense of efficacy - Individuals may contribute valuable information because the act results in a sense of efficacy, that is, a sense that they have had some effect on this environment.
* Communion (Sense of community) - People, in general, are fairly social beings and it is motivating to many people to receive direct responses to their contributions.

=== Difficulty in harnessing power of the masses===
* Jay Rosen in his [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2006/11/14/jay-rosen-on-open-source-journalism-2/ video] of how hard it is to sustain volunteer help (Long tail).
* Dr. Weinberger on how nebulous it is on how we're going to pay talent. (The whole discussion is interesting. He compares people who do things on the side without it being their chief financial goal [like a musician] and how that relates to online journalism. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118460229729267677.html Article]

=== The Long Tail concept relates to people's motives===
* What is the long tail? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tail Wikipedia's definition]
* Oscar's analysis [[oscar.howell/LOW and Long Tail| of the long tail]]
* Mark Cuban's analysis [http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/17/blogs-and-the-lessons-of-the-longtail/ Blog Maverick]

=== Case studies of successful harnessing-the-masses endeavors===
* Mechanical Turk
* Blogosphere and online journalism
* Open Source software (Mozilla)
* Collaboration websites (Webdeveloper.com)

=== Not so successful endeavors===
* Google Answers
* AOL Community Leader Program

===Conclusion===
There is a lot more to understand about why people contribute to the web. Organizations and non-profits can harnessing the power of the masses.

===References===
Kollock, P. 1999. "The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace," in Communities in Cyberspace. [http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm Article]
Cuban, M. [http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/17/blogs-and-the-lessons-of-the-longtail/ Blog Maverick]

User:Ternto333

2008-04-27T01:21:37Z

Ternto333:

Trent Ostler is my name. This is my wikipage. One reason why I am taking this class is because I am going to law school this fall with an interest in intellectual property. I love the internet too.
[[Trent Ostler Final_Project|Check out the final project page]]

Oscar.howell/Labor on the Web

2008-04-14T22:30:25Z

Ternto333: /* Relevant Issues */

'''Project Page: Labor on the Web'''
== Proposed Structure of the Presentation ==

=== Definition of "Labor on the Web" ===
Notes and references for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW_definition|Definition]]
* Is based on non-market systems (collaboration)
* It is small to very small (granularity)
* Must be assembled to be meaningful (modularity)
* Can be performed by a person (human capital)
* Can be performed by a device a person owns (assets)
* Productivity is measured as accuracy of contribution
* Can be paid, unpaid or "token"
* No formal contractual relationship
* Exhibits a power law distribution

* (It is NOT an outsourcing job enabled by IT)
* (It is NOT a Home Worker or other kind of out-of-the-office type of work)

=== Types of Labor on the Web ===
Notes and references for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW_types|Types of LOW]]
* Crowdcasting
* Crowdsourcing
* Artificial Artificial Intelligence
* Assembled Distributed Computing
* Mass collaboration
* Avatar Agency (MMORPGs)
* "Buzz" Marketing

=== The Impact of The Long Tail ===
Notes and references for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW and Long Tail|LOW and Long Tail]]
* Collaborative Networks with large numbers of participants follow a Power Law distribution
* The small population of very frequent "workers" can have monetary motivations
* The large population of low frequency "workers" have monetary motivations that tend to be trivial, but social capital is important
* How to reward monetary motivations without disrupting the cohesion of the network?

=== Case 1: AOL Community Leader Program ===
Notes and references for [[Aol Case|Aol Community Leader Program]]
* Volunteer moderators worked like employees
* Fair Labor Standards Act
* Department of Labor Investigation
* AOL cut volunteers
* Class Action Suit still pending

=== Case 2: Meraki Mesh Network ===
Notes and references for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW_Meraki|Meraki Case]]
* Individual becomes Internet Access Provider (IAP)
* Every IAP is part of a large mesh network
* IAP contributes own equipment and access
* The users connecting don’t pay for service.
* The IAP can display ads.
* Strong social and community motivation.
* Tools allow IAP to prevent misuse and overload.
* Compensation is not related to cost.

=== Case 3: Webdeveloper.com ===
Notes and references for [[webdeveloper.com]]
* A community that produces content about SW development
* Collaborative work and Commons

=== Case 4: Amazon's Mechanical Turk ===
>> Notes and References for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW_AMT|Amazon MT Case]]
* Amazon promotes it as a "markeplace for work"
* A HIT (Human Intelligence Task) is a unit of work performed
* "Requesters" send out HITs using the system
* "Providers" perform the HITs online and "earn" payments
* Payment is done via the Amazon Payment System
* Prepaid HITs are tokens (not real currency units)
* Amazon explicitly mentions problem of "employment status"
* Only US and Indian workers get paid in cash.

=== Relevant Issues ===
>> Notes and references for this slide: [[oscar.howell/LOW_issues|Issues]]
* Employer/worker relationship becomes non-personal
* Minimum Wages & Worker Claims.
* Contractual Relationship.
* "Tragedy" of mass collaboration.
* Payment methods (micro-payments)
* Child labor & worker ID.

There must be a way of leveraging the money-making business models with the power that mass Labor on the Web has shown to have. For businesses, many examples of providing incentive through non-monetary means. For instance, users have been shown to naturally want to help out a non-profit, or small company fighting against the big-guys (open source software). But when it's a known large-company that makes a lot of money, users may feel like they deserve some of that money when they help out. AOL showed that providing users with adequate compensation (which doesn't have to be money) is necessary. We may need to standardize a clear level of expectations of what the user is doing for the company.

;In the future we will see more business models using social networks, mass collaboration and LOW for profit and competitive advantage. Rules for worker rights, employer protection and payment methods will become relevant.

;LOW could also become an option for low income workers in developing countries. Issues of international money flows, child labor and money laundering could become relevant.

== Business Models ==
* [http://mturk.amazon.com Amazon's Mechanical Turk] ([[oscar.howell/LOW_taxonomy|details]])
* [http://kluster.com Kluster]
* [http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ Seti@Home]
* [http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top NASA Clickworkers]
* [http://www.digg.com Digg]
* [http://www.meraki.com Meraki]
* [http://english.ohmynews.com/ OhmyNews]
* [http://innocentive.com/ InnoCentive]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon Facebook Beacon]
* [http://www.marketocracy.com/ Marketocracy]
* [http://www.webdeveloper.com/ Webdeveloper.com]
* [http://www.secondlife.com SecondLife]

== Possible Cases ==

* [http://www.linkedin.com LinkedIN]
* [http://www.espgame.org/ The ESPgame]
* [http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ Google ImageLabeler]
* [http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Stardust@Home]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers Google Answers]
* [http://www.paycircle.org/ PayCircle]

== References ==
* [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243 The Tragedy of the Commons]
* [http://www.cerna.ensmp.fr/Enseignement/CoursEcoIndus/SupportsdeCours/COASE.pdf The Nature of the Firm] (pdf)
* [http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm]
* [http://www.thefeaturearchives.com/101119.html Open Source Currency]
* [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/pubs/googleanswers-011404.pdf Earnings and Ratings at Google Answers] (pdf)
* [http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/CMPO/workingpapers/wp115.pdf Why Voluntary Contributions?] (pdf)
* [http://jellis.net/research/group2005/papers/RafaeliRabanRavidGoogleAnswersGroup05.pdf Social and Economic Incentives in Google Answers] (pdf)
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html Wired: The Rise of Crowdsourcing]
* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/labor.html Wired: 5 Rules of the New Labor Pool]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program AOL Community Leader Program]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act Fair Labor Standards Act]

== New References ==

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_Filtering Collaborative Filtering]
* [http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=619 Tapan Parikh, mobile phones for developing countries]
* [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_34/b4047426.htm BusinessWeek, The End of Work as You know It]
* [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_09/b4073064466649.htm Gore, Geldof, Venter...And This Guy?]

== Bibliography ==
* Rishad Aiyer Ghosh, editor, C.O.D.E., Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy
* Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks

Oscar.howell/LOW issues

2008-04-14T05:12:56Z

Ternto333:

[[oscar.howell/Labor_on_the_Web|Back to Main Page]]

* '''Fair Labor Act''': Can someone be fairly paid to perform a small task online? The price for each task would probably be very high, since you only perform a very small number of it.
* '''Contractual Relationship''': If a business pays a worker to perform small tasks in P2P network, is there a contractual relationship? Are workers binded by ethical, confidentiality and copyright rule? "through certain web sites, the Internet can also supplement or even replace in-person employment relationships" (Ben Edelman, ''Earnings and ratings at Google Answers''").
* Income Tax, regulations
* '''International workers, regulations''': International money flows have certain restrictions, to prevent money laundering and illegal activities.
* '''Transaction costs''': if businesses pay for each task performed, transaction costs would make the force of the collaborative network nil, since its force relies in the ability to take advantage of disappearing transaction costs, including the cost of the worker.
* '''"Tragedy" or "Depletion" of mass collaboration:''' if we try to leverage the social and economic dynamics of non-market mass colalboration for business goals, the vere same system could become not operational. In the moment that social capital gets suplanted by mnonetary rewards, the underlying assumptions of the system get disrupted.

Webdeveloper.com

2008-04-14T05:03:34Z

Ternto333: /* Online communities like Webdeveloper.com */

===Online communities like Webdeveloper.com===
* Online community - a group of people that interact on the web for social, professional, educational or other purposes.
* What is the motivation?
Peter Kollock (1998) researched motivations for contributing to online communities. In "The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace", he outlines three motivations (Kollock:227) that do not rely on altruistic behavior on the part of the contributor:

* Anticipated Reciprocity - A person is motivated to contribute valuable information to the group in the expectation that one will receive useful help and information in return
* Increased Recognition - Individuals want recognition for their contributions.
* Sense of efficacy - Individuals may contribute valuable information because the act results in a sense of efficacy, that is, a sense that they have had some effect on this environment.
* Communion (Sense of community) - People, in general, are fairly social beings and it is motivating to many people to receive direct responses to their contributions.

==References==
Kollock, P. 1999. "The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace," in Communities in Cyberspace.

Aol Case

2008-04-14T04:22:10Z

Ternto333: /* Case 1: AOL Community Leader Program */

=== Case 1: AOL Community Leader Program ===
* Definition - Group of volunteers in 90s who moderated chat rooms, message boards, and download libraries for AOL.
* Class Action Suit - Two former Community Leaders filed a class action lawsuit against AOL, claiming that AOL volunteers performed work equivalent to employees and thus should be compensated according to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
* Arguments: The Community Leader position was an "employee relationship" with AOL. It required a significant amount of effort and detail:
1) Community Leaders had to undergo a thorough, 3-month training program.
2) Were required to file timecards for shifts.
3) Required to work at least four hours per week.
4) Needed to submit detailed reports outlining their work activity during each shift.
* Inconclusive
The U.S. Department of Labor investigated the report, but came to no conclusions, officially closing the investigation in 2001.
* AOL's response
In response to the investigation, AOL began drastically reducing volunteer responsibilities. By 2000, nearly all Community Leaders had lost content-editing rights and no longer provided customer service or technical support to AOL customers.

In February 2008, the court in which the lawsuit was filed denied AOL's Motion to Dismiss and certified the case for class-action status. The court has ordered AOL to provide the names and contact information for all former Community Leaders to notify them and give them the opportunity to join the class-action lawsuit.