Student research seminar: Rachel Cobcroft
In his consideration of Verkeersbordvrij, Jonathan Zittrain poses the challenge of identifying the technical tools and social structures that inspire people to act humanely online. This presentation engages with the notions of philanthropy and gift giving in virtual communities, seeking to understand the factors that motivate members of Flickr.com to share their images under Creative Commons licensing. It seeks to identify the tipping point at which an individual’s focus is turned from their own ‘life blog’ towards participation in an online community, aspiring to collaborative, commons-based peer production. Investigating frameworks of P2P and integral theory and employing the methods of virtual ethnography, this research explores the way in which the wisdom of the crowd may be harnessed ethically and sustainedly, pointing towards best practice business models for web 2.0.
What’s like the framework that engages collective creation?
Factors influencing participation (4C)
- Convergence – Technical
- Community – Social
- Commons-based Creativity – Legal
- Commerce – Economic
Collaboration is the killer app
User-led development
The ‘produser’
(producer+user)
Life-caching
Motivations to Participate
Hemetsberger’s (2003) Motivational Framework:
- Task- and Product-Related motivation
- Long-term utilitarian goals and social significance
- Internalized group goals and services
- Socio-emotional Relationships
More info
- Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
- Sharing Nicely and Wealth of Networks, by Yochai Benkler
- Why Hackers Do What They Do, by Karim Lakhani
- Peer to Peer Foundation, by Michel Bauwen; Cooperation Commons, by Howard Rheingold
- Fostering Cooperation on the Internet, by Andrea Hemetsberger
- ccMixter
- Rachel Cobcroft (2007) Open Your APIs: Flickr’s Perspectives on Play
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Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Rachel Cobcroft shares Flickr wisdom, by Daithí Mac Síthigh
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