I really hate how I’m supposed to make money off the Internet right now. If I want to profit from a business/website I have to do either of the following A) charge for it, B) Plop ads everywhere or C) some variation of the two. What really bugs me - is if we’re attempting to create these social experiences - We have to completely break it with how the owner expects to be compensated. Oh and if it’s with ads, That part isn’t social (you can’t talk to your users and ask them to click ads). So I say web 3.0 is kicking ads to the curb — and if you read my blog then you know my solution to this (doing micro amounts of work on the behalf of others).
But I think I should spell it out with some real examples. First I’ll illustrate a way that micro tasks can be done, tasks that bring value to another website. So how about this, a way Google can combat copy-written material being posted on YouTube.
That’s right, put users to work - you wanna upload a video (use premium service)? well gimme 5 seconds of that big fat brain of yours cowboy and do this work for me. That’s fair to ask - a lot more fair than dumping ads all over the place. Think of the side effects of this, this is the perfect captcha system too. Why would anyone try to sneak past it - if they could get it done correctly in code - they’d be rich!
OK so now the second half is building a pipeline/framework that allows jobs to be posted from anywhere to anywhere. If that existed, you could have this same job be issued on another site.. oh lets say this one.
See what I mean? workloads could be distributed across different websites, and money could be exchanged from payers to site owners behind the scenes - keeping that all away from us, the user. We just do work for the sites we want to support. Two birds with one stone, I love it!
Michael Buckbee
October 26th, 2007
That’s not a bad idea (seems similiar to the captcha project that was based upon fixing OCR text in historical documents).
One issue with what you are describing is that the context, length, etc. is lost and that can make it tough to determine fair use from infringement.
Subchunker
October 26th, 2007
But how do you maintain quality control? Just like the video that a YouTube user might upload can be a total piece of garbage, the same user could just randomly click when prompted with his required microtask. End result is the same - Google has no idea if any of the users accuratly determined if the content was copyrighted. Maybe you could suspend accounts if the user repeatedly did shoddy work - but what about people who might be honestly bad at the microtasks (maybe kids or the elderly). Their accounts would be suspended due to their lack of expertise. It’s an interesting idea, but it relies, I think, on the honor system. You’d have to have all the users on board with this model and if there is anything the internet has taught us, it’s that people can be real wankers when they are anonymous and not held accountable. So, any ideas on how the quality of the work could be maintained?
BPAndrew
October 26th, 2007
@Michael
Hey thats a good point, perhaps they have to watch a segment of the video instead of looking at a frame?
If they did do something like this they would have to tweak and test for the right solution - this was just an example of how to put a dedicated user base to work instead of bombarding them with ads.
BPAndrew
October 26th, 2007
@Subchunker
That has been a problem with data submitted to Mechanical Turk - what has been done in the past is mass sampling (asking the same question to 1000 people and spotting trends) or what I’ve tried was a 2 pass system and rewarding users who have verified results while blocking users that are trying to maniplulate the system.
I wrote a whole post about it - http://bitporters.net/2005/12/13/a-matter-of-trust-people-are-smarter-than-algorithms/
Again more details on a specific implementation - roadbumps to success, not reasons to ignore this idea.
Ian
November 12th, 2007
I remember floating an idea about a change control systems that worked in this manner. The proposed change was presented to x number of users of the system (the IT staff). The problem being solved was to provide fast turn around for proposed system changes. Those that allow changes that are against policy or otherwise should not be approved are no longer able to present their own change requests to the fast track system. A skills matrix would provide the list of qualified IT staff to send the proposals to. This approach makes the micro tasks (and not so micro tasks) part of ones job. Every quarter extra bonus is paid out to those that ‘make it work’.
BPAndrew
November 13th, 2007
Ian,
Interesting idea, did it ever get past the idea stage where you work?
Also, you came across this blog from my MTurk antics a few years ago right? Do you still take work from it / follow that whole crowd source stuff?