Crowd-Generated Content (CGC): What Is It? July 30, 2009
Posted by Mok Oh in Platforms.Tags: tribe sourcing, crowdsourcing, crowd-generated content, CGC, tribe-generated content, TGC, UGC., Platforms
3 comments
What is Crowd-Generated Content (CGC)? To better describe what CGC is, I need to first discuss user-generated content (UGC) and crowdsourcing.
UGC is content — from text to multimedia — that is produced by end users and are publicly available. It could really be anything from blogs to videos. It has been a big buzz word for many Web 2.0 applications and platforms. Many websites (e.g. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Ning, WordPress, Typepad, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) built a platform on which end users can easily create, organize, distribute and search their content — hence the words “user generated.”
Crowdsourcing, on the other hand, is “the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call” (Wikipedia). This power of the crowd has been amazing in many Web 2.0 applications and platforms as well.
So what the heck is Crowd-Generated Content? Given the right platform and tools, the crowd can produce relevant and focused content with specific intentions — the crowd becomes the unifying voice for a cause, instead of many users doing different things. It’s the difference between Yelp (CGC) and WordPress (UGC) platforms.
Am I splitting hair? I don’t think so. Where UGC is a generic term for anything an end user publishes on the web, CGC has a focused intention. And this point is very important for folks like EveryScape or Google or Microsoft, where we are creating a viable, scalable solution and platform on which the entire freakin’ world could be visually built. That really requires a serious focusing of intentions and serious focusing of CGC.
In fact, I will argue (in the following blogs) that we first need Tribe-Generated Content (TGC) first (a la Tribe Sourcing), then Crowd-Generated Content to follow. A good analogy might be that TGC is the skeleton, and the CGC is the muscles on top.
Stay tuned!
Crowd Sourcing vs. Tribe Sourcing July 10, 2009
Posted by Mok Oh in maps.Tags: crowd sourcing, crowdsourcing, geolocation, Google, intensions, maps, skyhook wireless, tribe sourcing, tribesourcing
4 comments
Google Maps new geolocation feature -- now you can share your location on Google Map
Yesterday, Google Maps launched a geolocation feature. When you click on the small blue dot on the upper-left controls, it will try to figure out where you are using Wi-Fi. It’s a pretty darn cool feature. Well, Skyhook‘s been doing that much longer than Google has and definitely has a better product at this point (your Google Map on your iPhone uses Skyhook! Things that make you go hm…). Hold this thought. I’ll return to my point about this in a bit.
This blog is not about Google getting their tentacles into many different markets. (We had that experience and Galen Moore of Mass High Tech quoted me quite well in his article.) That’s definitely a multi-part blog for some other time.
I want to talk more about crowd sourcing vs. tribe sourcing in this blog. I think people have a decent idea of what crowd sourcing is. So, what is tribe sourcing? Tribe sourcing is when you have not everyone involved; much less but focused set of folks doing the sourcing. Crowds can create lots and lots of data, but have many different intensions — their “intension vectors,” if you will, are not aligned, hence creating lots of noise as well. So, in order to gather what you want from this vast amounts of information, you have to filter accordingly. Meaning, make some assumptions, process, and potentially make some guesses as to what that means.
Now, let’s take the example of what I initially mentioned about Google geolocation vs. Skyhook geolocation. Sources say that Google’s geolocation feature is not as good. It turns out that’s because they are crowd sourcing their info. From Wade Roush’s article:
“[Google] quietly gathers local readings every time someone uses a Google app on an iPhone or a Blackberry, or some other mobile device.”
As opposed to Skyhook’s tribe-sourced data:
“Skyhook’s own approach is to send Wi-Fi-sensing vehicles down every highway, street, and alley, methodically establishing the position and strength of every access point they pass.”
Skyhook may have much less quantity of people contributing to their data, but they have a very focused tribe gathering the right data. Their intension vectors are very well aligned in collecting the data in a structured and optimal way for this particular application.
So, which one’s better? It’stoo early to tell but my bias is Skyhook (and has nothing to do with the fact that I know Ted Morgan and folks at Skyhook fairly well). Is tribe sourcing better than crowd sourcing? Vice versa? More specifically, when will Google’s data/product be better than Skyhook’s? I don’t know, but time will tell.
Yet another question: Why combine and do both? Google’s everywhere (including Android) and seemingly has unlimited resources, so they can. I think Skyhook can too. Perhaps the answer lies in somewhere in the balance between the crowd and the tribe.
