[Search-l] "directory" vs. "search engine"

[Aerik Sylvan]

On 6/13/07, Jason Calacanis <jason at calacanis.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/07, Nitin Borwankar <nitin at borwankar.com> wrote:
> > There are different kinds of bloggers.
> > Those who
> > b) have "fun" blogging AND are self employed due to ad-revenue (and
> > possibly premium subscription revenue) from blogging
>
> Nitin: You nailed it. We paid 300 bloggers a month when I was running
> Weblogs, Inc. (which produces Engadget, Joystiq, Autoblog, etc). So,
> there is a model between work for free for fun, and get paid and hate
> your job. Frankly, I find it crazy that folks would work for free for
> a venture-backed company when sales people, CEOs, programmers and
> others are getting paid--but that's just me.



Hmm... I'd like to look at this whole question from some new angles.  First,
is this topic of "working for free".  I think we can safely say that no one
wants to "work for free".  Pretty much by definition, we work for money, or
some other compensation (fame, glory, to alleviate feelings of guilt,
whatever).  And certainly there are folks who work for some of those other
forms of compensation - to be brutally honest, I hope to achieve something
with many my contributions.  Creating the Wiki Directory (
http://wikidweb.com) was fun and interesting, but I hopeed to eventually get
something - not necessarily money, but something - out of it.  So not all
work is for money or immediate compensation.

BUT, there is also the category of contributions that are either altruistic,
or just fun.  Probably many wikipedia editors fall in this category.  They
are not being fleeced.  They are not hoping to get rich or famous (perhaps a
few are, but many are not).  They're having fun, or they're doing it out of
altruism.

That leads nicely to another topic, which is the question of culture.  Jason
rather famously said that Wikipedia should have advertisements (
http://www.calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-the-table-or-please-jimbo-reconsider/
).
I think the culture of Wikipeida is probably kind of like public television
or radio - it's not a perfect analogy, because NPR pays (most) of it's
contributors, but many folks who call in or participate on shows are not
paid - so it's not too much of a stretch.  Okay, so contrast public radio
and television to the for-profit broadcast channels (who are monetized by
advertising).

The content and culture of the two are totally different.  And I'm inclined
to theorize that there's a dynamic there that drives that.  A large
non-profit supported by advertisements would be an interesting experiment,
but it's easy to think that the content decisions might be colored by a
desire to increase revenue.  If you're pinching pennies and begging for
donations to make ends meet, the environment is one where it's easier to
stay focussed on
the goal of the endeavor, and have no temptations to tweak the content to
increase revenues.

Now, the reason I bring it up is (well, it's intesting to think about on
it's own) that there is more to be considered than just business models.
Or, maybe more accurately in the case of Wikia, there's more to the business
model than just the revenue model.  Wikipedia has a culture that drives it.
Mahalo will have a very different culture.  What kind of culture will Wikia
Search have?

(As a total side note, I can tell you that I am trying to foster a culture
more like Wikipedia at my wiki directory - thus, no quick sources of revenue
(Google Ads)... I'd guess that what I'm attempting to do is a funky hybrid
business model since I don't think donations could support it, at scale).

Best Regards,
Aerik
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/attachments/20070613/bb3e5740/attachment.html