Anthropology: The Art of Building a Successful Social Site - Re. Picture if you will, a collaborative site that runs on two servers, is managed by four people, and has attracted a third of its target demographic within six months of launch.
A site that has had 800,000 posts submitted by its users in its short lifetime and has 16 million pageviews/month - and growing. This is the story of Stack Overflow, a free question and answer site built by developers for developers that has fostered a strong and committed online community in under one year. How? Easy, according to founder Joel Spolsky; all it takes is an understanding of anthropology and a lot of determination. "As we move from the era of computing into the era of the Internet, we no longer need to worry about computer-human interaction. " Anthropology and the Social Web "In anthropology it's very clear that the environment that you create influences people and how they behave", Spolsky explained. He points to the Scalinata della Trinita dei Monti, or the Spanish Steps to further his point.
Holy Cow, The White House Has a Digg Clone - ReadWriteWeb. The White House has launched a new web site where anyone can submit and vote up their most important questions for President Obama about the economy.
That's right - the White House has a Digg clone! At least for the next two days. Activity on the site will culminate in Obama addressing the top questions on Thursday, March 26. Once registered on the site Open for Questions, it looks like you can search for questions, vote on questions that are already listed, and submit your own. As it stands right now, the trend definitely seems to point to more voting for existing questions over new questions being asked. The site also keeps a tally of the number of questions and votes that you cast. You only have a couple of days to get your questions and votes in, so hurry on over to Open for Questions and get yourself registered. Update: Commenter Baratunde let us know the software driving the site is called Google Moderator. Buzzwatch : Wisdom on Crowds: What CEOs Need to Know About the S. From blogs and Wikipedia to Facebook and Twitter, each new wave of digital communications generates more upheaval for businesses.
In his recent book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” Clay Shirky explores the ramifications of a world in which people can find each other and collaborate with increasing ease. Mr. Shirky is a writer, consultant and faculty member at New York University (we recently highlighted his comments on the payoff from converting TV-watching time into more productive endeavors). Buzzwatch recently caught up with Mr. Shirky to discuss how these technologies are changing the equation for companies, managers and CEOs.
Buzzwatch: Sum up the basic changes you’re talking about. Mr. Buzzwatch: What does a CEO need to understand about the ways collaboration is changing? Mr. Buzzwatch: If you could suggest one collaboration tool for businesspeople to get familiar and comfortable with, what would it be? Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. (Image: iStockphoto.com) Wij bouwen een wijk.