As we mentioned in the first week, social network has just emerged in recent decade and was just about to show off its dominating force to the traditional Internet applications. Specifically, the birth of “the Social Content Creation”, a new on-line service based on user participation and user-generated content, has gradually eaten up the market share of paper-bound alternatives and, even, the conventional online encyclopedia.
The "death" of MSN Encarta three years ago could be the best evidence to reveal the true power of Social Content Creation. Dating back to the year of 2009, there could not be much astonishing headlines as the Microsoft's announcement to shut down its online encyclopedia service, MSN Encarta. In my perspective, it could, undoubtedly, be regarded as a devastating blow to the traditional online content service.
Started by Microsoft in the mid-1990s, MSN Encarta has been the best online encyclopedia service for nearly ten years. During its establishment, Microsoft employed the best professionals to write and edit thousands of articles, the most experienced managers to overcharge the whole process and the adept engineers to provide technical support. However, ten years later, Wikipedia, an entirely differrent mode of online cyclopedia, hit its ancestor in the head with a brick. Nobody gets paid and nobody needs to pay. Do it for fun. Everyone could write and edit the items that he's particularly interested in.
Why did Encarta surrender? As the company has said on its webpage:
"Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past.”
It suggests that Encarta has failed to meet the public’s demand of bursting information in society. But how did Wiki succeed?
In my opinion, the success of such a social media website would be particularly focused on three aspects, low threshold, quick react and motivation oriented.
Firstly, Wiki is totally free of charge and technically user-friendly. Consequently, it enables everyone to share its knowledge from anywhere of the world and enormously enlarges both the range and scale of the information.
Secondly, Wiki could update itself in a timely manner. In 2005, Encarta tried to take the middle ground by allowing users to submit suggestion for article updates, but these were not integrated into articles until they had been approved by Encarta editors. However, on Wiki, everyone could take the priority to post and correct the knowledge in time without the acceptance of authority. Such method guarantees a quick react to the social events.
Finally, Wiki “pays” people by personal satisfaction rather than by money. The innovative idea of allowing editors to leave signatures on their works would inspire its editors’ intrinsic motivation to share their knowledge in some degree.
Taking all the factors above mentioned, we could easily figure out the power of the Social Media. But there is always a "however". Every technologies would have its benefits and its drawbacks. The shortcomings of Social Media, especially of Social Content Creation, have also emerged in todays' world.
Started by Microsoft in the mid-1990s, MSN Encarta has been the best online encyclopedia service for nearly ten years. During its establishment, Microsoft employed the best professionals to write and edit thousands of articles, the most experienced managers to overcharge the whole process and the adept engineers to provide technical support. However, ten years later, Wikipedia, an entirely differrent mode of online cyclopedia, hit its ancestor in the head with a brick. Nobody gets paid and nobody needs to pay. Do it for fun. Everyone could write and edit the items that he's particularly interested in.
Why did Encarta surrender? As the company has said on its webpage:
"Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past.”
It suggests that Encarta has failed to meet the public’s demand of bursting information in society. But how did Wiki succeed?
In my opinion, the success of such a social media website would be particularly focused on three aspects, low threshold, quick react and motivation oriented.
Firstly, Wiki is totally free of charge and technically user-friendly. Consequently, it enables everyone to share its knowledge from anywhere of the world and enormously enlarges both the range and scale of the information.
Secondly, Wiki could update itself in a timely manner. In 2005, Encarta tried to take the middle ground by allowing users to submit suggestion for article updates, but these were not integrated into articles until they had been approved by Encarta editors. However, on Wiki, everyone could take the priority to post and correct the knowledge in time without the acceptance of authority. Such method guarantees a quick react to the social events.
Finally, Wiki “pays” people by personal satisfaction rather than by money. The innovative idea of allowing editors to leave signatures on their works would inspire its editors’ intrinsic motivation to share their knowledge in some degree.
Taking all the factors above mentioned, we could easily figure out the power of the Social Media. But there is always a "however". Every technologies would have its benefits and its drawbacks. The shortcomings of Social Media, especially of Social Content Creation, have also emerged in todays' world.
Do you have any idea about its weakness, my friends? Leave the question for you^_^
( For Your Participation ! )
REFERENCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta
http://baike.baidu.com/view/1637.htm
http://baike.baidu.com/view/281298.htm
From the above analysis of the social media,I think this way of internet content creation may have some disadvantage. Firstly,everyone gets approval to update the information so that the content it created could involve some wrong ideas or subjective concept.Secondly, since everyone get access to utilize the content,the property of copyright could be another problem.From my perspective,it may reduce the enthusiasm of users or motivation to update the content in one day.
回复删除Wiki's shortcoming may just come from its successful innovation. Since the content has been updated by different people, it tends to be scattered. The more people modifying a concept, the harder it is for readers to catch the original thinking. Moreover, it seems the history of updating is always kept, which also causes confusion and reading frustrations.
回复删除From research point of view, wiki gives a direction to prestigious papers and noble findings, but the extracted contents that are displayed in the page just serve as an aid to help scholars grab a brief concept of the question. That's why there's the saying that stuff on wiki can't be utilized as formal references. However the user-friendly nature of wiki does lower the bar, so that readers can spend the least time to get the most.
回复删除