As the various predictions come out about people’s projections for 2007, I am beginning to see more and more impressive predictions about what will happen in the social media space. People are projecting that the power of human input will do all manner of incredible things.
But there is a basic problem with all this. Unregulated human input on a large scale has serious problems with accuracy. One of the most interesting experiments along these lines is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the largest example of this concept at work.
The site can be an amazing resource on all kinds of different topics. Like many people, I use Wikipedia as a resource from time to time. However, I would never consider it an authoritative resource on an important topic. Let’s look at a couple of examples of this:
- If I am looking for information on a technical topic, such as how the DNS system works, I would use the Wikipedia article. One reason for this is that the alternative sites I might come across the same information on are not likely to be more authoritative in any obvious way.
- If I am looking for information on a medical condition, I would never rely on the information in Wikipedia. There is plenty of free information available from more authoritative sites that I can hold accountable for what they have told me.
The biggest reason I won’t rely on the Wikipedia information when there is a viable alternative is that information defined by committee just can’t be depended on. Look, it will work often, maybe even most of the time. But last I checked, people are human. This means some of them are going to represent their own self-interests. Ok, in fact, lots of them are.
Wikipedia works some of the time because there are lots of zealots that police the accuracy of the data, and these people work to keep self-interested behavior out of the site. But there are not enough zealots available to police the accuracy of every topic. Nor is it realistic to expect that you will ever find enough unpaid people to do this for you.
One of the more well-known examples of this type of failure is the Open Directory Project, aka DMOZ. The failures of ODP are well known. Too much self-interest and too little policing have blown the validity of this site out of the water. Think of it this way – when was the last time you went to DMOZ looking for quality sites about some topic? I don’t mean for your link building project – I mean for real information.
But what we need to realize is that the social media phenomena is incredible anyway. We shouldn’t try to take the concept of social media more than it is. Sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Second Life (to name a few) are fascinating and thriving communities, where marketing opportunities abound for the savvy marketer.
Social media smart companies realize that they have an opportunity that is unprecedented. You can now engage in real discussions with your customers, and at very low cost, making it scalable. For one thing, companies can use this dialogue to learn more about their customers than ever before.
In addition, companies can engage in dialogues with their critics. Social media smart companies realize that they have critics, all businesses do. Ignoring critics comes with great risks – the criticisms can build momentum and start to affect the growth of the business. Engage those critics in a conversation, and you have the opportunity to address their concerns.
It seems to me that this is pretty amazing as it is…
