Why Wikipedia is bad example for Startups (for UGC)
Image via Wikipedia
It won’t be wrong to say that Wikipedia is closest and literally defines the word – user generated content (UGC) as well as crowdsourcing.
While Wikipedia is a role model, I have serious concerns when startups start believing that if Wikipedia can do it, so can they.
To me, that’s a big mistake.
Here is why:
- Leaving wikipedia, no other wiki based site has achieved the same growth.
- UGC is no easy game – you can’t make it happen by opening up to people.
- People don’t ’self-moderate’
- Somebody needs to hold a baton (remember the troll over wikipedia’s rel=”nofollow” decision)
- Somebody needs to drive the discussion (be it slashdot/techmeme, you need moderators).
- And most importantly, answer the ‘why’ part – i.e. why will people contribute?
- People contribute to wikipedia because it appeals to ‘esteem/self-actualization’ needs.
- Why will they contribute to your product? What’s the incentive?
Having said that, one of the important aspect of Wikipedia is the fact that it’s not-for-profit initiative – the moment they start showing ads, contributor’s perception might just change (give me a share? – and maybe that’s why Knol is clearly focused on rev sharing).
The not-for-profit face of wikipedia also positions the product as a way to help others (one of the major reason why people contribute to any social activity is because of philanthropic reasons – i.e. ‘they want to help others’) – that’s the most significant value that one derives by contributing to wikipedia.
How do you think can a startup build hooks in the product to get more content from users?
While there is no right answer (ranges from building enough value to providing incentives etc), the wrong answer is ofcourse, to follow wikipedia’s model and build the UGC strategy based on that.
What’s your opinion?
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
You dont have to look too far. Just read Jacon Nielson’s Theory of “participation inequality”. Gist of which is that:
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action
Theory or study also explains how to increase user participation or UGC.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
@Gaurav – its not abt 1% (this is a well known theory) – its about how do you get those 1%?
Pt. this post makes is that you cant rely on wikipedia model to get those 1% contribution.
-ashish
the ways to increase participation, as outlined in Jacon’s post is the most generic I have ever read.
They are generic but not everybody get those generics right in their products. A UGC product startup looking at wikipedia model as an exampple sounds funny to me. I mean if they were good to know about UGC, they must have heard of Digg, youtube, flicker …
I completely i agree with you Mr Vivek.. wikipedia is not the end to UGC ..
Most of the times, you’ll get spammed by marketers wanting to put their links in your content…
This is so visible even in blog comments…
I agree with the points Ashish has mentioned.
But a site can show ads and remain “non-profit” if it decides to invest all the ad-revenue to develop and maintain the site.
You also mentioned slashdot.. They do show ads and I don’t think its a “non-profit service”.. why do people still contribute?
other plausible examples of user-generated-content on sites which make profit are Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers. In these cases, the users may contribute to increase the exposure of their own profiles, but it seems to be working out for the websites.
Of course, these are very different models of user-generated-content, not the wiki-style “open for all creating and editing of informative pages”.
@Munim – very valid points.
Will address them in next post.
@Sumedh – Need comment ranking system – will implement.
We are a UGC site and participation is obviously the biggest challenge we or anyone in similar space will face.
No success story to share but a few thoughts based on which we are defining our co-creation model:
- I take the wiki success just as a reflection of the fact that people are contributing and as time passes contributors % will increase,esp. by the google generation.
- As awareness increases participation will grow
- Visibility, Recognition and Philanthropy will remain the biggest motivators
- Need to treat contributors on a platform as co-creators of value
if the question is will a wikipedia like model work in india ? the answer is NO in most of the cases and “Difficult” in some cases. and this is not because of some inherent dislike or lack of expertise or any such thing . its has got something to do with our expouser to media and communication . best explanation of emergence of wikipedia and UGC has been given by Clay Shirky in his keynote about “Cognitive Heat Sink”. here is a transcript of the same http://conversationhub.com/2008/05/23/clay-shirky-on-gin-sitcoms-and-the-cognitive-surplus/
its a very good read
here is the video http://blip.tv/file/855937
I think saying that some success cannot be duplicated is being too strong a stand. After all, when wikipedia was launched people didn’t believe that it would get anywhere.
People contribute to wikipedia because it is positioned as a big movement kind of thing with which everybody would like to be associated. I have made some contributions to wikipedia and one thing I realized was there is a very strong system of credibility, reputation etc. It is not apparent from reading the article pages but if you read the discussion pages, it becomes very evident.
There are several people who everyday browse through wikipedia and make contributions. The reasons are not philanthropic or self-actualization. The reason is maintaining their identity on wikipedia. You’ll come across several user profiles on wikipedia which will boast about how many “edits” they have made. More the edits, sexier the person.
There would be very few philanthropic contributors if any. Most of the regular contributors are the ones who take pride in their “edits”. Note, they don’t specifically care for contributions, they care for “edits”.
I think hanging around on wikipedia for a couple of weeks and making a couple of edits everyday will leave you with a very different image of wikipedia internals.
We too rely on UGC and have experienced that its a few big-hitters on the site that contribute the most. Our primary UGC need is the geo-location (latitude, longitude). Thats something we cannot do (nor scale) by paying folks to walk the streets and record the locations. Once the mark is made on the map, even if its with minimal content, we can leverage other means to spruce it up. Lowering the barriers to input (e.g. no registration) also helps in getting casual visitors to plot on the map. Great topic.
Can someone post a case study on diff UGC sites?
IMDB, I think is one. Can someone explain in detail how wikipedia moderates??
I think the best example for UGC is stackoverflow.com
+1 no doubt about that…SOF is excellent.
Of course.. right!! thanx..
How do the following site manage data?
1) IMDB
2) Wikipedia
3) SOF
Anyone knows about that?
Who verifies infinite data?
For wikipedia…hear from the horses mouth
http://www.kreeo.com/bok/Wikipedia/Jimmy_Wales_on_the_birth_of_Wikipedia-sty2