TheWayoftheWeb

There’s a tendency to look at User Generated Content and online collaboration as an easy way to create content, products and services without some of the hassles of a traditional business.

And it’s easy to understand why: No ground rent, no equipment or infrastructure costs, no limitations on who can be involved etc. And no need to necessarily pay contributors.

But it isn’t an easy option, and there are several major risks to any online collaboration which requires more than one or two people:

Trust: How quickly do you place your trust in people to deliver on their promises, to deliver them on time, and not to take good ideas elsewhere?

Management: Is there some kind of leadership or guidance to keep things moving, and to clearly articulate the vision and strategy etc - which may have been decided democratically. How do you keep momentum going and inspire people to continue even when things can be tough?

Politics: How do you deal with disagreements? Infighting? Rivalry?

Reward: How do you supply a justifiable return to contributors for their time? Financial or otherwise?

Communication: How do you keep people updated, and make things simple and easy to contribute?

Those are just the first few problems off the top of my head. The reason they come to mind is that I have basically decided to cut all responsibility for Disposable Media, leaving only the possibility of contributing the occasional blog post or article at some point.

It’s been a lot of fun, particularly when I was given the honour of being Editor, and we had a fast growth in audience - all from a group of people working for no financial reward and contributing articles, designs etc via a forum. In my time on DM, I only ever met two of my colleagues in real life in the space of two years!

But having realised that I don’t have the time and energy to drive DM forward, I stepped down to take a back seat and a more advisory role. And what then happened was quite painful to watch, as some infighting and sabotage began, communication became worse, trust was lost, and many people started drifting away.  I don’t place all the blame on the Editor who replaced me, as there have definitely been people who have used a period of change for their own agenda.

Hopefully it will rise from the ashes, as over the years it’s had some very talented people, and some great articles and content. On the bright side, it’s shown me that although I was far from perfect, and made several mistakes, I did achieve a lot in keeping things going, and always trying to drive more organised and efficient systems to make life easier for everyone - and it also highlighted the need for communication and rewards, which will hopefully help me on other projects.

To be honest, the real risk to online magazines isn’t just the problems of collaboration - it’s also the arrival of new aggregated delivery services in a magazine format - i.e. systems that take your favourites from services like Last.fm, and then produce a custom magazine around them, like Idiomag. It plays on a simple philosophy of mine which is becoming more and more realistic and reinforced - ‘The most effective targeting of an individual, is the targeting they do for themselves‘

It’s amazing how blogging guilt can motivate a post at 10.40pm on a Monday night, but I’ve been a bit lacklustre. Mainly because I had a great weekend hanging out with my baby son, playing a little Xbox 360 (Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 is still my game of choice), and generally staying off the laptop as I’d originally planned to start rebuilding my car. But as the rains came down, the only choice was to hang out in the dry - which I duly did.

Getting back online, I was reminded how much I actually enjoyed this blog in the gap between starting to write on this new url, and finally setting up Google Analytics. Because I had no way to tell if anyone was reading - except for the occasional comment - I suddenly started relaxing and writing for myself again. No pressure to hit keywords, or make sure I updated regularly, or to increase my audience. Hopefully I can carry on in that vein, despite my foolish registrations on Technorati, Feedburner, and even the Adage Power 150, to put myself up against a large number of quality blogs.

Related to that is my reaction to the news my colleague and friend David Cushman has started regularly contributing to Stowe Boyd’s /Message. In the old days, I’d have probably felt a bit jealous if someone got picked up by a bigger print publication. But now it’s a lot easier to be magnanimous - mainly because any link from either of the two blogs now helps me far more than before!

In all seriousness, the nature and power of an increased network means that building, maintaining and valuing the success of friends, colleagues and peers suddenly becomes a lot more important than cutting ties to anyone who dares move on to other things. You never know what opportunities it may bring, and who may end up following a link to Dave, and then to here. And suddenly it really does become more about the people within a team working collaboratively, rather than always competing - and despite the hippy sentiment, it’s easy to find the value that can bring to any business.

*In a wave of productivity, there’s also a new update by me on my new group blog, 140char.com, dedicated to all microblogging. And don’t forget to subscribe via RSS if you don’t want to miss any posts here.

Ever wondered why networks tend to grow more quickly if they allow groups of self-form?

It’s because, no matter how well you know your subject and your customers, you’ll never predict their most interesting motivations for starting a group. And the ones that you might dismiss can end up being incredibly popular…

Take, for example, the Lolcat Bible… a wiki constructed to translate the Bible into the language of those lolcat pictures you’ve doubtless seen around the internet.

(Spotted thanks to a post on Dana Boyd’s blog)

Now would you have created a group for people interested in creating a Lolcat Bible? Would you have been able to quantify how many people would be interested in contributing, and how many people would then view it? Would you have even guessed Lolcatz would take off?

Me neither.

But by allowing anyone using your website to make their own choices, decisions and ideas, you’ll capitalise when one of their groups does take off. If you’re trying to explain it to the type of people who inists on quantifying everything by Return on Investment, you could try explaining that rather than spending time and money on second-guessing how to force people into categories, you’ll be hiring an unlimited number of people to do your research and development for you, and then reaping the benfits…

Still not convinced? Take a look at Wikipedia’s list of internet phenomena, and see how many you recognise. Then take the list round your peer group, and prepare to be shocked how many people who you’d have thought closely shared you interests will have radically different knowledge (Idea taken from The Long Tail…see reading list, right)…

One of the biggest joys of the internet is the fact you can find people, products and information on pretty much anything you might need, want, or be interested in. So why would you ever want to stop people experiencing that joy?

Oh, I can’t resist: