As you all know, besides prediction markets, the wisdom of crowds is an important topic on Midas Oracle (open-source software, for instance).
#1. Should Wikipedia run ads? See our Mike Linksvayer, who favors it (and responds to his discussants). My personal vote is that ads are intrusive and a distraction to reading serious stuff —but if Mike really wants it…
#2. Yesterday, I blogged about Guy Kawasaki making only 4,000 bucks in blog ads. I completely forgot to tell you that he has set up a wiki for his next book:
To tap the “wisdom of the crowd.†For example, ideas for my next book. How many guys have 30,000 people providing new-product ideas?
[...] I’m ready to write another book. I have some ideas, but I’d like to tap the “wisdom of the crowd†in order to ensure that it appeals to “the long tail†in this “Web 2.0†world.
So…I’ve created a wiki for the book that’s located here. The password for contributors is “kickbuttâ€. I’ve used PBwiki. [...]
- I really don’t see what “the long tail” has anything to do with it. Moreover, I don’t understand the expression “it appeals to the long tail”. The long tail is Chris Anderson’s concept that says that if you add the readership of all the little Web postings, it’s bigger than the most popular stuff and bigger than the media —same idea with e-commerce. Chris Anderson’s message is to mind the little stuff and turn it into an accessible collection.
- As of today, I see ONLY ONE CONTRIBUTION to his wiki —and keep in mind that Guy Kawasaki is a top blogger. As I told you last time, participation in wikis is smaller than participation in blogs.
- I have strong doubt that Guy Kawasaki’s wiki could fit James Surowiecki’s definition of the wisdom of crowds:
Under what circumstances is the crowd smarter?
There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd’s answer. It needs a way of summarizing people’s opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks.
What’s the “summarizing” mechanism in Guy Kawasaki’s wiki??? There’s none. Users can just add comment lines, that’s all. It’s a good idea to have blog readers contributing to book ideas, but it has nothing to do with the wisdom of crowds.
I love marketers, and I also hate them —when they borrow concepts they don’t understand. Do your homework, Guy.
I like the logo of that blog, which reads:
Wikipedia can produce two versions of their site:
1) A bandwidth throttled site with no ads – to minimise expense
2) A full-throttle site with ads – non-profit with cross-subsidy to 1.
Punters willing to prostitute their eyeballs to advertisers for WikiPedia’s benefit can do so.
Midas Oracle can also produce two or more versions:
1) Plaintext/minimalist site more approachable to the lay person with a passing interest
2) Fullly crufted site with plentiful hyperlinks, emboldened key phrases, quotes, citations, side bars, ads, xreffed lists of ‘authors other posts, comments, etc.
http://www.midasoracle.org/category/all-best-posts-ever/
Hilarious! Thanks for turning that bit of complete misunderstanding up.
Very few blogs get enough traffic to earn more than pocket change. Consider that Kawasaki’s is ranked #59 by Technorati (whatever you think of Technorati’s rankings, Kawasaki has an extremely popular blog).
I still recommend those who want to keep up with trends run ads, somewhere, just for the experience. My blog is usually ranked around #60,000 by Technorati. My earnings from non-optimized ad placements (bottom of page) are a little better than the .001 * 4000, but probably within a factor of ten. The amusement value in seeing what text ads are shown is far higher.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, has traffic that could earn tens of millions at a minimum.
Thanks, Mike Linksvayer. I was disappointed by Guy Kawasaki on that one.
“The amusement value in seeing what text ads are shown is far higher.” I will tell you something. Each time I go to a website (and some play-money prediction exchanges do that) and that I see Google Ads there, I have a lower esteem for the venture. I downgrade the branding of that website, in my view.
I recommend to shy away from ads if you run a website or a blog, unless you’re highly popular or unless you can do home-brew ads.
I would not be entirely against ads in Wikipedia. If they appear there, I would accept it.