From Selfish to Social
Ethan Stock wrote a helpful piece last week, User-Created Content: Selfish, Social, Selfless, about the three distinct species (classes? families? orders?) of user created content (UCC). They break down like this: “Selfish UCC”, content like del.icio.us bookmarks, which is created by users for personal benefit only; “Social UCC” such as blogs, created as a means of self-expression to a community; and “Selfless UCC”, content developed for the benefit of others, like Wikipedia.
I think he mostly nails it, though I could quibble over whether or not Flickr photos are really in the “Selfish” camp (I’d argue they are often social), and whether many Wikipedia contributors as well are driven by some social reward. But he’s right in that the primary motivations break down pretty neatly along his lines. And his practical product design suggestions make sense. I’m not quite sure, however, how this example would work in practice:
For social UCC, create programmatic mechanisms (like polls or votes or star ratings) that allow people to quantify their point of view on some abstract scale. This will benefit the user (by allowing them to say simply, “I am *very* Republican,” for instance) and benefit everyone else — who can then say, “He’s *very* Republican, and I can easily assess where he’s coming from.”
I like the idea of some meaningful measure of bias in social systems, but how can we do this in a way that’s plastic enough to capture various facets of a user’s perspective? Is it enough to ask how “Republican” a person is in determining where they’re coming from? And is their answer dependable? I, for one, know too many extremists who consider themselves perfectly moderate.
In working on UCC systems I try to develop product strategies that move users from selfish to social motivations in their content creation. Flickr and del.icio.us are breakout products because they are useful without the social impetus. The social benefits are free to emerge during the course of selfish use.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:34 am
I have been seeing the del.icio.us type products as selfish first and social a close second. The selfish has two benefits, it provide rich value to the people that use it, but it also gives a personal voice in the social aspects of the product.
Tools like upcoming may be selfish first and social second too as if it were not a tool that allowed them to identify events, follow them, and see who else is going it would greatly decrease their desire to go back over time. But the social component of saying I am watching/attending this event so your friends may influence others to do the same. It starts a conversation, in a sense.
Could you post a link to Ethan’s post?
January 20th, 2006 at 10:07 am
You’re right, Thomas. Any workable social system builds on a core of selfishness (sounds very Objectivist, I know). The Selfless UCC model taps something of self-interest as well, even if it’s more subtle.
I’d say the selfish benefits must be fundamental for the social features to be transformative.
I added the link above, but here it is again:
User-Created Content: Selfish, Social, Selfless
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:22 pm
[...] social software?
January 23rd, 2006
I discovered that Jspad commented on my previous post via del.icio.us: Thor points out Ethan Stock’s user co [...]