In Sunday’s New York Time’s Magazine is an article about Wikipedia and the small group of dedicated volunteers who are the site’s real authorities. The site, an encyclopedia of information compiled by the site’s readers, has grown rapidly and, according to the Times’ article accounts for 1 in every 200 page views on the entire Internet. That is HUGE! I tell clients who expect people to simply show up to their website that the internet is like the ocean and every web page is a drop of water. This one site gets 1 in 200 views in that ocean.
Making Wikipedia a nonprofit was either the smartest thing Jimmy Wales ever did or the dumbest thing.
The Times’ piece examines how Wikipedia increasing covers breaking news, something not usually found in an encyclopedia. How do the Wikipedians cover news when they don’t really leave their bedrooms?
The presentational difference is that Wikipedia’s version of events comes in the form of one constantly rewritten, constantly updated, summary article, rather than a chronological series of articles, each reflecting new developments, as newspapers and even most news sites do. But much more significant than that, no Wikipedia article contains any attempt at actual reporting — in fact, original research is forbidden.
The rule, according to Wales, is “not out-of-context absolute” — if he, or some other trusted Wikipedia user, happened to be present at some catastrophic event and took a picture of it, that picture wouldn’t necessarily be removed from the site — but in general, he explained, “it’d be too easy to be hoaxed. And anyway, an encyclopedia is really not where you should go for that. Britannica doesn’t publish original research. An encyclopedia is the condensation of received wisdom.”
The big news in social networking and tech is the new open platform of Facebook. Facebook is a hot social networking site and the open platform means that I can build an application and have members of Facebook spread this to all of their online friends. Project Agape, a company that built the first causes application for Facebook, has surpassed 1 million users to their application and raised over $100,000 — in about 1 month. Their application is called Causes, and when you sign up you can pick from many causes, such as Save Darfur or One.org. An icon of the cause shows up on your profile page and your friends get notified about it and anyone on your page can then click to donate or learn more.
There are problems with this Facebook thing, the biggest of which is that the application you build has to run on your own servers, which means only those with the resources to serve data to millions need apply. (If you are interested in these issues read Marc Andreessen.) But I digress.
This is only the beginning and I will write more about where this is going and all of the other players working on bringing nonprofit causes to Facebook.
Most commentators say Facebook’s move to open up is a game changer. MySpace, the biggest of the social networks, has allowed widgets for a long time. Widgets are embedded mini-applications, such as a video player or slide show of my photos from Flickr. But a widget doesn’t harness the native functions of the network in the way Facebook’s platform does. And MySpace has limited what you can put in a widget, not allowing you to have advertising for example. Facebook has not such restriction — meaning they are allowing the companies that will develop application to monetize those application — which will obviously attract more developers.
So today I heard that MySpace is working on opening up as well. The business idea here is that a platform is more valuable than an application. People will use an application. But if many people build many interesting applications on your platform, they make the platform indispensable. It’s kind of like Windows (used to be?) — the platform (Windows) supported and made necessary by all of the applications (Word and Excel and games, etc.) built on top of it.
The open platform idea is not limited to the social networking folks. A pioneer of this has been Salesforce.com. Salesforce is an online application to manage your contacts and sales information. They realized a while ago that they had a very strong database application and invested a lot in infrastructure. So they allow others to use this base and build on top. So, for example, companies have built applications for the tracking of donations on top of Salesforce.com. There is even an application to track blood donations. The buyer of any third-party application must also subscribe to Salesforce.com. For the company producing the application, they don’t have to worry about anything other than the presentation layer, they can hook into Salesforce for the rest.
Amazon has gotten into the act as well. Of course they have big servers and know how to manage data. So they said, in addition to selling books and music and everything else, why not let people use our infrastructure. For example, want to put your products in our warehouse and utilize our mailing and software to pick and ship? Why not? Among other things, they launched a service called S3, which means Simple Storage Service. They are saying… you build a web-based application and you need to store something — data, photos, video, whatever. And you can keep adding servers and paying lots of money, but we already have this, so why not use our servers and pay-as-you-go a small fee per gig.
There is word that Blackbaud (Nasdaq: BLKB), the largest company in the fundraising software space, is moving toward opening up their systems. And I saw something about Kintera (Nasdaq: KNTA), a company that is bleeding cash, thinking of opening up as a way to attract developers who will make the product more useful. I just read that LinkedIn, the business networking site is working to open up as well. I think we should expect this trend to continue.
It seems opening up and that open API is indeed the new black.
We just finished doing post-production on a public service announcement (PSA) for PlayPumps International using footage they had of tennis player Nicole Vaidisova (currently ranked 10th in the world) talking about her support.
“The PlayPump water system is a child’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump that provides clean drinking water and powerful educational messages to children and families in schools and communities in rural and peri-urban communities in Africa.”
The PSA is currently the featured video on DoGooderTV.
I have been reporting here about the trend of getting your consumers, or activists/donors, to participate in user generated content contests. The idea is simple — “make an ad for us and you could win something.” The something might be $25,000, $2,000 or recognition from your peers. The goal is to get people engaged, and get some “free” content out of it. MoveOn did this in 2004 when they got people to make anti-Bush commercials. In addition to having the videos online, they put together a DVD called Bush in 30 Seconds.
But contests are harder than they look.
We saw that for Heinz, the product wasn’t so great. And in today’s Times was the headline:
Some YouTube users cried foul this week when they saw the winning video in a Malibu Caribbean Rum user-generated advertising contest.
The contest, which began in early May, solicited videos about Malibu Banana Rum set to the tune of “Banana Boat Song,” also known as “Day-O.” It offered a prize of $25,000 or, if the winner preferred, a banana grove in a tropical location.
The Malibu brand, owned by Pernod Ricard, stated that it would consider the votes of YouTube users when it selected the winner. Malibu also said the actor Efren Ramirez of “Napoleon Dynamite” would help judge. The winner would be announced, the company said, by June 30.
The winner, however, was posted Monday, and finalists were not publicly named. Some consumers who lost the contest were quick to start a rumbling on YouTube message boards that the contest had been rigged — a charge that Malibu denied.
One YouTube user even made a six-minute conspiracy theory video that compared images from a professional Malibu commercial promoting the contest with the winner’s video, saying in part: “Wow, the same nose!? The same guy? You be the judge!”
“It just looks like, wow, they rigged the contest,” said Debbie Lusignan, 35, of Adams, Mass. “I am furious. I spent 60 hours on this freaking contest.”
Ron Klineschmidt, the winner of the contest, who has been peppered with negative comments from his upset competitors, said they were being sore losers…
Contests can work well. But don’t go into it thinking it will be cheap or easy.
If you read this blog you know I am a big fan of David Pogue – the New York Time’s technology writer — generally and of his video work in particular. His videos used to be only on the New York Time’s site, which meant I couldn’t embed them here. But now they are loading them onto YouTube. Here’s his excellent video review of the iPhone:
Apropos of nothing, the big news for me today is that there is now professional baseball in Israel. You can watch an interview at this link about it, and below are some articles.
It’s an old joke, so indulge us with a chuckle, or a groan. But do you know where to find baseball in the Bible?
Why, in the very first sentence: In the big inning …
Baseball in the Holy Land? No joke, not as of today. This is Opening Day for the Israel Baseball League, the first professional serving of bats and balls in the land of milk and honey.
The Israeli sports scene leans to Europe, to soccer and basketball. Maccabi Tel Aviv, the country’s foremost basketball club, is a five-time European champion. When the World Cup starts, Israel stops.
The Americans are not deterred, at least not the ones dedicating time and money to launch the league.
“Baseball in Israel would be a heartwarming and great story,” Commissioner Bud Selig said. “You’re going into a part of the world where baseball hasn’t been popular.”
Selig is on the league’s advisory board. The director of baseball operations is Dan Duquette, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. The commissioner is Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt.
Kurtzer often gives speeches on Middle East diplomacy and the prospects for peace, and audiences applaud politely. Then he mentions he’s running a new baseball league, and the crowd goes nuts.
“It’s now a family joke: It’s about time I’m doing something worthwhile with my life,” Kurtzer said.
Shalom, baseball
This score just in from Israel: Modiin 9, Petah Tikvah 1.
The Israel Baseball League debuted yesterday before 3,000 fans on a field near Tel Aviv, and it was baseball as usual – except some things get lost in translation.
“How do you say ‘home plate?’ ” asked one of the announcers in Hebrew on the cable telecast of the game. Apparently, some terms don’t translate, so the announcers just ended up using English for ball, strike and out.
Among the league’s 120 players on six teams, only 20 are Israeli-born. And one fan, Natan Tamari, 23, who came out to watch after seeing the sport while growing up in the United States, said baseball is unlikely to catch on among Israelis. “In my opinion, it’s impossible,” he said.
Still, it was a day to celebrate, said former Boston Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette, one of the league’s executives.
“It’s a proud day for Israel, because this is the first professional game in 5,000 years,” Duquette said.
Though Mr. Flip is happy to hear about baseball reaching Israel, he believes American football would be even better, if only so that the end zones truly could be referred to as the Promised Land.
Compiled from wire and Web reports by Mr. Flip, who figures he now knows where Shawn Green will end up playing after a couple more seasons.
There is a lot of talk in the nonprofit world about a social networking strategy. More recently the talk is about a Facebook strategy. I stumbled upon an essay about the emerging class divisions between users of Facebook and MySpace. On the surface it seems Facebook would certainly be a better place for nonprofits looking to find future donor prospects.
Here’s a relevant quote:
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.
