I definitely learned something new from this chapter. I had not heard of the People Finder initiative following Hurricane Katrina. I think that this shows how each person can make a difference and how well mass collaboration lends itself to our world, both business and personal.
I also like the way the authors tie in some of the drawbacks of participatory platforms; little or no protection and recreation barriers. This points to a previous comment I made about the utopian views of the authors. I think it is important to note that while a person might generate something for their own personal use, without proper motivation, they will not share it. I remember when Google Maps becamse attached to everything; I thought it was the neatest thing ever and had even thought of the need for it on Real Estate search pages but I had no idea how to do it. I was extremely glad someone figured it out and I assumed they were getting paid by all of the sites using it.
2 comments:
Mass collaboration works great in situations where people are combining to solely benefit those in need. When capitalist theory comes into play people get greedy and just want to profit off of ideas.
I was pretty shocked by the Katrinalist too. It's pretty amazing what highly motivated people can do. I also thought it was pretty cool how applications are being used by other people to combine them for other uses. I've been looking for an apartment through Rent.com and the main thing that draws me to the place is how close it is to the office. I can click use GoogleMaps to see the apartment and my office and the directions, distance, and estimated time. The distance from my office is one of the biggest factors I am using to look for a place, so it is definitely beneficial.
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