Crowdsourcing, Incentive, and Value

In this video, Jeff Howe, a contributing editor at Wired and the author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, presents during a Berkman Center Luncheon on some of the key issues around the concept, including:

• What motivates the contributors in crowdsourced efforts? Specifically, to what extent are monetary incentives a driver as compared to extra-monetary ones?
• What about “crowdsourced” projects which are not creative or knowlege-worker oriented, but outsourced menial labor?
• How can or should “creatives” respond to the rise of crowdsourced alternatives?

Jeff Howe at Berkman Center on Crowdsourcing

Where do Memes come from? The Meme Factory

I’ve often thought that if I hadn’t left academia to work in web development and consulting, I’d have become a professional analyst of Internet memes. Instead, I get to just be a fan.

A few videos to spark (or reinforce) your interest. First, (via Biella) a two-part series from an event by the Meme Factory, from March 24th of this year, in which they give a ~45 minute overview of internet memes. (Warning: much of the content may be NSFW – remember the Internet is Serious Business).

Read more…

Teh Awesomeness: Miro 2.0

Ok, this seems to be the week of me blogging about things being released, so I was going to skip the Miro 2.0 release announcement – figuring it has been well reported elsewhere – but then I got this in email:

Miro 2.0 is Here, and it's really really awesome

They’re right, Miro is awesome, and it’s an open source project which you can help contribute to, whether you’re a coder or not.

Also in the email:

How can you help the most?

• Send this message to your friends! Since we can’t afford to buy our way into their hearts, we need you to tell them about Miro and why open media is important.
• Translate! Only about 40% of Miro users are in English speaking countries. We need your help to translate Miro, our website, and the Miro Guide. Details are on our Volunteer Page.
• Test and code! Got chops? Join in.
• Help new users– you can answer questions and join the community conversation here: Miro discussion forums.

And don’t forget to download Miro 2.0!

State of Drupal (Szeged 2008)

I was unfortunately unable to get to Drupalcon Szeged last month, so I’m now making my way through the videos and slide decks from sessions there.

One of the favorite keynotes of any Drupalcon of course is the State of Drupal address. Here’s video of Dries from Szeged:

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Things are going to get wierder

Via Jake McKee I just discovered this video of Chris Heuer interviewing Clay Shirky:

Clay’s long been a favorite speaker of mine – Perl as an act of love and the cognitive surplus being two other videos featured here – and Chris does a great interview here.

My favorite quote, as you might suspect given the tagline of this blog: “Things are going to get wierder before they get saner.” We’re in the midst of a long transformation – we’ve left point A but point B won’t be clear for some time.