maandag 1 maart 2010

The power of communities.

Recently DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) has set up a challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet. In this challenge people had to find ten red balloons which were spread out all over America. Interesting was that there were two diferent aspects invlolved. The first was the power of digital communities and the second was prize money. The first team which collected the location of all ten balloons would get $40,000 prize money.

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) won the competition and chose to split the prize money with the people who helped them finding the balloons. Through the power of the internet and online communities all balloons where found in less than 9 hours which was quite fast for searching the entire U.S.

Figure 1. The locations of the balloons.

This contest is a good indicator for the power of online communities. A different side of communities is that rumours can also be send out with this same speed. A good example is the actor Jeff Goldblum which was reported dead on twitter. And this news was directly taken over by mayor news networks like CNN. The reason this can happen is because everyone can publish everything, in other words; complete freedom without boundaries.

But there are also different communities like the Youtube community. In which companies are now seeing the benefits. Of course we all know the story of Esmee Denters who was first seen on youtube and now has a record deal with Tennman Records. But the marketing companies are now deploying commercials made for the internet. A good example is Martini, which has launched a commercial/videoclip with a length of 2:51 minutes. To put this commercial on the television would be too expensive but on the internet it is free (except for the marketing costs).


So community sites have a great deal of power over people in this era. Companies are also using the community resources to increase their income. A good example is the computer manufacturer Dell, whom reported that they made a profit of 6.5 million dollar revenue due to special twitter campaigning and offers.

A newcomer to the community game is Google. Last year when I was at a programmers convention in Amsterdam (Kings of code) Chris Chabot explained the plans Google had, for creating and integrating different communities so the web will be one social experience. With this integration in Youtube and their own platform Android, the possibilities seem endless.

Electronic suppliers are thriving on this development and mostly the mobile market. Nowadays most mobile cellphones are capable to surf the web and connect with social community sites like MSN, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Hves, Google buzz and so on. So the marketing of these devices are aimed at these services and come with catchy slogans as "stay connected" to sell.
Mobile phones are not the only market for social community applications, the electronics manufacturer Samsung has made a television that supports twitter. So now one can watch television and twitter at the same time.

So how do I see in the future the social networks?
They will be integrated even more in everyday life, although people could see this as a positive factor, it can also be negative. People are giving up a part of their privacy to inform or entertain others, but what will happen if the given information is used against them?


Extra's, Links & Sources
Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed




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