embrace the chaos(& other scary tales from the

social web)

by Tara ‘missrogue’ Hunt

first...the bad news

RIP controlHere LiesExpertise Secrets

Did you know 4.0?(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

their deaths have not been exaggerated

• democratization > gatekeepers

• amateurs > experts

• transparency > p.r. spins & brand mgmt

• collaboration > corporate think tanks

• openness/sharing > secrets/intellectual property

now onto the good news...

the tale of the mysterious taggershttp://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3484530193/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/133814827/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress

the results• 10.4 Million views

• 79% of 4,615 photos marked as ‘favorite’

• 15,000 new contacts for Library of Congress

• 7,166 comments left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique Flickr accounts

• 67,176 tags added by 2,518 unique Flickr users

• <25 instances removed because inappropriate

• their press/blogger coverage was through the roofReport: For the Common Good, October 30, 2008

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final_summary.pdf

why it succeeded

• the Library of Congress erred on the side of open (even the licensing)

• they thought of it as an ‘experiment’ rather than a well-formed strategy

• they trusted and let go of control - they embraced the chaos

• they looked at it as a long-term partnership

the tale of the amateur journalist

stop being important and start being interesting...

Michael Hirshorn, Atlantic Monthly

what is interesting?

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http://www.fivethirtyeight.org

600,000 visits PER DAY(that made fivethirtyeight.com the 2nd most popular political site of 2008)

(in <5 months, rising out of obscurity)

(run initially by ONE guy)

why?

• Silver offered up something valuable

• the site was born out of a passion - first for numbers, then baseball, then politics

• these numbers were not only accurate, but they also simplified very complex information

• Silver listened to his audience. He interacted, responded and tweaked as necessary

tales of the growing mash-ups

the law of mashups

• no matter how much you lock stuff down, it will be taken and repurposed.

• you should be so lucky as to have your content remixed. If it isn’t remixed, worry about the relevance/interestingness of your work.

music

Girl Talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjHj-f6gLkI

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/pl_music_1609

Kutiman (thru-you)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBfj6khrG4http://thru-you.com/

photography

http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/index.php

maps

http://www.everyblock.com

twitter

http://www.twittervision.com

http://www.escapemydate.com

what are the benefits of mashups

1. Onramps & Offramps: more ways for people to interact with and consume your content (traffic from Twitter’s API is 10x twitter.com)

2. Creativity: those projects you would never get to in a million years (or think of) are created!

3. Exposure: the more fun the mashup, the more likely you will get some press from it

most popular mashup apis

• Google Maps >1800 mashups recorded

• Flickr >500 mashups recorded

• YouTube >415 mashups recorded

• Amazon >315 mashups recorded

• Twitter >275 mashups recorded

the tale of the crazy collaborations

University of WashingtonComputer Science Division

http://www.fold.it

stats on fold.it

• Study found folding teams do much better than individuals

• >100,000 players in under 1 year

• A 13 year old non-scientist (no training) won the folding competition

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

180,000 active volunteers and nearly 290,000 active computers doing work!!

your futurelooks bright...

the trick (& treat) is for you to...

increase your

social capital(whuffie - the currency of online communities)

turn the bullhorn around

• stop being ‘experts’ and start interacting

• watch, listen and learn from what your audience needs

• collect data on what your readers share and interact with and tweak

become part of the community

• become more collaborative and open

• discuss articles in progress with twitter followers, facebook fans, etc.

• read and link to blogs that are on topic

• really figure out what people are interested in/talking about by being social on the SNs

create amazing experiences

• create information out of passion

• simplify complex stories (infographics, stats, etc.)

• inject more fun into your content

• create social interactions between readers

• let people personalize their experience

embrace the chaos

• let go of control; offer APIs, widgets, etc.

• get experimental! (i.e. try things without knowing the results beforehand)

• learn from other industries and the successes of the hyper-viral

• put a human face on your product

find your higher purpose

• think customer centrically: put your audience’s success at the core of every decision you make

• get behind the passions of the community; or

• promote something bigger than your own work (equal access to education?)

• get involved in your local community events

there are many more reasons

to celebratethan fear the social web

the end

tara ‘missrogue’ huntauthor, The Whuffie Factorhttp://www.horsepigcow.com

http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com

p. 514-679-2951e. horsepigcow@gmail.com

t. twitter.com/missrogue

share/remix/spread...but don’t forget to

attribute

http://slideshare.net/missrogue