Pay it Forward...Online Gift Economies

Kollack in writings about “Economies of Online Cooperation” (1999) he defines gift economies as places online where information, expertise, and the like are shared without the expectation that the giver of the information be compensated. With the rise of Web 2.0 these economies have taken different forms including sites like Wikipedia where people can share their expertise on any subject to help benefit the whole without every being paid.
According to McGee and Skageby the most common form of internet giving is expertise. This makes plenty of sense because knowledge or a different perspective is generally pretty easy to provide to others. Also, sharing knowledge was one of the first uses for the Internet. It was used to allow scientists to collaborate across great distances in the hopes of enhancing collective knowledge.
An economy that I participate in is RocWiki. RocWiki is an online guide to some of the highlights of Rochester culture. One of my favorite aspects of RocWiki is the restaurant reviews. As a self-professed foodie I love seeing what’s out there for me to enjoy in the culinary world. However, I’m not one to just go into a restaurant and hope the food was worth the 20 dollars I would spend. I would much rather look online and see what the patrons of these unknown restaurants have to say about it and then base my decision on their opinions.
As outlined in the reading a gift economy is one where information is supplied for reasons other than direct monetary gain. A gift economy is similar to the concept presented in the movie Pay it Forward. Individuals offered their help and expertise to another member of their community without asking for reimbursement and also not knowing whether or not the good deed will benefit them in the long run.
I considered RocWiki to be part of a gift economy because as outlined in the article gift transactions have three characteristics. First gift transactions do not require the gift to be repaid. RocWiki doesn’t allow users to utilize their services and information for the low price of $9.99 per month; it offers the services completely free. Each contributor gives freely of their knowledge to everyone else. The looming comment box at the bottom of each page let’s you know that if it is pertinent to your experiences it would be beneficial to the whole to share them.
The second characteristic that identifies the site as a gift economy is according to Kollock, “benefits come from improving the ‘technology of relations’”. RocWiki offers its services in the hopes that by pointing its members and users in the right direction it will enrich their lives and in the long run enrich Rochester as a community. It also helps improve relations by offering links to organizations in Rochester that are dedicated to helping bring people together such as a Young Professionals organizations that looks to help this group improve their social network.
According to Kylie Veale, the third characteristic of a gift economy is “intangible rewards leading to tangible rewards. Although someone may never walk up to a contributor to RocWiki and say, “Wow I’m so glad you took the time to recommend that restaurant to me!” There is still a tangible reward to be found here. The website itself is a tangible reward. It is the original creation of someone out there, and it is a piece of every single person who took the time to give of themselves to the site.

*As a side note, would you guys mind filling out a brief survey for my communication 205 class?*
References

Kollock, P. “The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace”. London: Routledge. (15 September 2008). https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d.

McGee, Kevin and Jorgen Skageby. “Gifting technologies” First Monday, July 2005. (15 September 2008). .


Veale, Kylie J. “Internet gift economies: Voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity”. First Monday, 2002. (15 September 2008).

Post 3- If I ruled the world

In the new millennium information piracy emerged as a foe along with one of the most influential technologies in the history of mankind. The Internet, which has redefined the way its users live, became a medium for the sharing and conversely the pirating of information.

One of the recent internet phenomenons that could be utilized to prevent copyright infringement is tagging. There is no way to stop consumers from wanting free music, software, and movies, so I think that if there was a different way to structure how the copyright owners are paid that could be could be a solution in the economic structure of the internet. Socially, I think that peer pressure could be a force that could be exploited to stop Infringement. In a way downloading is like underage drinking, we are all doing it because it seems “dangerous” and makes us seem a little bit cooler.

I came across an article in New York Times that illustrated that people really do care about their personal information being shared with people who were not cleared by them to have access to it (Schwartz, 2003). I think this could be people’s point of vulnerability, and it could be manipulated to help curb the copyright infringement taking place.

I could be crazy for even putting this idea out there but, what if people were free to download, but if they chose to do so they would have to agree to make public some of their personal information? I think this could be revolutionary, even if far fetched. People sometimes do not realize that this is other people’s livelihoods, or they justify stealing music from artists by saying, they are already worth millions, this won’t hurt them. I know that if I knew information about me would be made public for a specific period of time, and I was agreeing to the consequences I would not take the risk.

I want to combine two of the concepts of tagging and changing how creators of information are paid in this new era of the download. If artists could automatically tag their information when used on other websites, and then when people use the link embedded in the host site being paid for that, I think they could offer their music for free (A.P. Lawrence, 2006). I’m not an expert on E-commerce, but I do believe if you can increase the traffic to a website that website would pay you, because ultimately they are able to reach a larger fan base. Where the tagging would come in, would besides linking back to another website, the host website would appear in more searches (Dutta, 2008). That also helps reach a higher population of people who might not have otherwise found that obscure website.

I think that the most important thing to remember about this issue is something I learned while Interning for TARGET Corp. when managing people, you need to obtain a personal commitment from them, not just compliance. It is once of the most difficult things to do in the eyes of a manager. I say this in reference to utilizing peer pressure to gain people commitment to reducing the amount of illegal downloads that occurs.

Personally, I think that one of the reasons people don’t pay for the content they are downloading for free is because they feel they are getting over on someone. Later on, it comes up in conversation with their friends about how they downloaded the new Batman movie three weeks before its scheduled release date. Their friends laugh and secretly wish they would’ve had the resources to do the same thing. If there was some way to inspire people to stop patting each other on the back for stealing from others, and to hold each other accountable that would be an ideal solution.

Citations

Dutta, Deepak Dr. (2008). 9 Ways to Increase Website Traffic Using Google Image Search. Web Design Library. http://www.webdesign.org/web/site-maintenance/web-promotion/9-ways-to-increase-website-traffic-using-google-image-search.14424.html.

Lawrence, A.P. (2006, October 31). Scraping sites- original source tag? Retrieved from http://aplawrence.com/Web/web_scrapers.html.

Schwartz, John. (2003). New Economy; Guarding Privacy vs. Enforcing Copyrights [Electronic version]. The New York Times 1-2. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E7D8103DF93AA1575AC0A9659C8B63.

How did we get to this thing called the Internet?

In the early 1960s Paul Baran was among the first to explore the concept of packet switching. As an employee of the RAND Corporation (Research and Development Corporation) he was a part of research for the US armed forces. At that point the United States government was interested in an expansive network that that was able to be accessed from multiple points, and served as a communication network that would be able to survive catastrophe.
The fruits of Baran’s research were a series of papers one of which was titled “P-2626”. In this specific paper Baran outlined a network that was built on three principles. The first principle was decentralization of the network with multiple paths between two points. Baran envisioned a network that didn’t have one specific location so that it could never be destroyed completely, and was also accessible.
The next principle Baran explored for his network was division of messages into different blocks or packets. This allowed messages to be sent across the network at different times and along different routes. If messages had to be sent as one whole message, it would take a longer time for space in the network to open up for the entire message. .
The last principle this proposed network was built on was delivery of messages by store and forward switching. Store and forward switching can be illustrated by the noble cell phone. If no network is available on your cell phone when you are sending a text message, in most cases your phone will save your text message to the outbox, and then resend once the network is available. This is similar to how the network utilizes packet switching The individual packets are sent to an intermediate location, where the message is verified, and then sent on to another location or to the receiver.
By definition the internet is an example of a network utilizing packet switching. This technology allows for the exponential gain in speeds we have seen in sending and receiving messages through the internet. When any information is sent over the internet it is first broken into pieces. Back in the days of dial-up it was easiest to see packets being reassembled at your computer because images would load inch by inch. But as networks become more complex and there is more bandwidth to utilize, packets can be queued up faster and become sent faster. Depending on your computer most images load all at once although if you’re viewing a web page the text may appear before an image does.
Packet switching allows the internet to process data and increasingly faster pace. When information can be broken down into smaller pieces its easiest to send. Each packet can be sent a different route. At each intermediate step the packet is inspected to help preserve its integrity which helps result in the transmission of a complete message. Also, at the end of the day although the message may not be sent or may not arrive in the correct order, the packet is coded with directions to reassemble the packet in its correct order.
Another thing that I found interesting about packet switching is that it enables websites to provide memberships and optimum service to members. So now services such as Limewire which offers Limewire Pro for a fee, can become a profitable entity while still providing free services to all. Many other websites are formatted this way, and it’s good for consumers because we are not automatically ignored because we don’t want to pay a membership fees. So in the end, packet switching allows Internet users to get their information in a shorter time frame, and it allows e-commerce to flourish in age where time is at an all time low, and multitasking is king.