IS1825 Multimedia Development
for Internet Applications
Lecture 10: Open Content and Open
Innovation
Rob Gleasure
R.Gleasure@ucc.ie
http://corvus2.ucc.ie/phd/rgleasure/index.html
IS1825
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Last session
 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
 Motivations
 Licences
 Examples
Today’s session
 Open Content
 The rise of Wikipedia
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Strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia
 Open Innovation
 Lead users and design
Open Content and Wikis
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Success of FOSS led to the community development (open) model
being applied elsewhere
E.g. ‘Wikis’
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A wiki is essentially a set of shared webpages in which users can
add, edit, and remove content
 Tends to be easy to use
 Ideal for situations where knowledge is distributed
 Migration of open model to non-specialist developments
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Wikis have been applied in a number of areas, e.g. education,
science, journalism
Wikipedia
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Richard Stallman wrote about applying open ideals to the idea of an
encyclopaedia in 2000
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A year later, Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry
Sanger
 Another video!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVFPW0r4jWk
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Wikipedia is the world’s largest open content repository, and is
thought to have nearly 500 million unique visitors per month
Wikipedia has c. 34 million articles in 288 languages. The Englishspecific version currently has 4.6 million articles (Encyclopaedia
Britannica had about 120,000)
Wikipedia and Reliability
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The issue that comes up most frequently is ‘if anyone can
contribute, how do we stop people inputting garbage?’
The honest answer is you can’t, so energy is focused on fixing
harmful input as quickly and efficiently as possible
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Changes are tracked and may be undone on peer-review (or not
committed where review occurs a priori)
E.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=University_College_Cork&a
ction=history
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A study in Nature (Giles 2005) suggested the reliability of Wikipedia
was similar to Encyclopaedia Britannica
Wikipedia and Integrity
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Wikipedia has five ‘pillars’
 Always an encyclopaedia – not a soapbox, not an advertising
platform, not an experiment, not original research
 Neutrality is expected (and citations are typically expected for key
points in articles)
 No one owns the content, it can be re-used at will
 Editors must be respectful towards one another
 There are no hard and fast rules
Wikipedia and Integrity
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It is run by a non-profit, the Wikimedia Foundation, who seek
donations from users in set periods of the year.
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No advertising or sponsorship is permitted
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Decentralisation still presents tension when issues are sensitive
 E.g. Global Warming
Wikipedia and Wise Crowds
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1.
The easy one…
Diversity
 Unlike FOSS, Wikipedia contribution does not require high skill
levels (though some high skill users contribute)
 This allows a broader array of users to contribute
 This also allows a larger number of users to contribute
 But all is not so rosey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_is_Wikipedia_losing_c
ontributors__Thinking_about_remedies#Who_contributes_to_Wikipedia.3F
Wikipedia and Wise Crowds
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2.
The kind of easy one…
Decentralisation
 Anyone can contribute and their contribution is (or should be)
taken on merit
 Some users have admin rights
 But everyone is reasonable right? No personal stuff is going to
cloud this up. Surely?
Wikipedia and Wise Crowds
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The harder ones…
3.
Independence of Opinion
 Articles are assembled cumulatively
 Each contributor builds on the contributions of previous authors
4.
Aggregation
 The content is generally considered to ‘harden’, not so easy to
make large fundamental changes late on
 Enthusiasts and more casual authors may not contribute at the
same point in an articles lifecycle
Open Innovation
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“Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of
knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the
markets for external use of innovation, respectively”
(Chesbrough 2003)
Comes from organisation’s realisation that not all of the smart
people work for them, many clever ideas are floating around outside
of the organisation’s boundaries
This typically takes two forms
 Lead-user innovation
 Innovation contests
Lead-User Innovation
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Lead-user innovation is based on the idea that some users will be
more advanced or intensive than others, hence ahead of the needs
curve (Von Hippel 1986)
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Because they are more invested in the area, these needs also tend
to be a high priority, meaning they tend to find creative workarounds,
adaptations, and solutions
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Organisations may thus try to leverage the power of the web to find,
communicate with, and collaborate with these individuals to
integrate and improve upon their solutions
Lead-User Innovation
Image from https://hbr.org/1999/09/creating-breakthroughs-at-3m
Example: Social Work in Developing
Countries
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Jerry and Monique Sternin were working in Vietnam in 1990 on a
project to decrease malnutrition in 10,000 villages
 65% of Vietnamese children under age 5 were malnourished
 Government projects were failing
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The Sternins decided to find 6 families you were unusually well
nourished despite being “very, very poor” and noted they
 Ate several small meals, rather than a few large ones
 Added small shrimps, snails, crabs, and greens to their rice that
others felt were dangerous
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Within a year, only 20% of their 1,000 children enrolled in their
project were malnourished
Example: Web-Based Enterprises and
HashTags
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The idea of hashtags (e.g. #rivetinginformationsystemslecture)
wasn’t introduced by Twitter, in fact Twitter founder Evan Williams
thought they wouldn’t catch on as they were ‘too nerdy’ and they
would group content themselves using more sophisticated data
analysis behind the scenes
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A couple of innovative users began using them and it started to take
off
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Twitter saw how they worked and changed their UI to encourage
their adoption among all users
Advantages of Lead User Methods
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Reduced cost of R&D
Potential for improved productivity – you know the solution works
Gather feedback early
Identifying lead users alone is useful for marketing and planning
Potential for future collaborations with external innovators
Potential for viral marketing
Disadvantages
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Potential reveal of sensitive information
Potential loss of competitive advantage as innovations are typically
hard to protect
Lead users may have agendas
Multiple lead user groups may exist with different trajectories
Possibility that inviting others into the design process means
innovations are travelling both directions
Readings
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Giles, J. (2005). "Internet encyclopaedias go head to head". Nature
438 (7070): 900–901.
Stallman, Richard (18 December 2000). "The Free Universal
Encyclopedia and Learning Resource". GNU.org.
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption
_of_wikipedia/
Readings
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Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). Open innovation: The new imperative for
creating and profiting from technology. Harvard Business Press.
Moore, G. A. 1991. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High Tech
Products to Mainstream Customers. Harper-Collins, New York.
Von Hippel, E. (1986). Lead users: a source of novel product concepts.
Management science, 32(7), 791-805.
Von Hippel, E., Thomke, S., & Sonnack, M. (1999). Creating breakthroughs
at 3M. Harvard business review, 77, 47-57.
Brief history of hashtags on Twitter
 http://readwrite.com/2011/02/04/the_first_hashtag_ever_tweeted_on_twi
tter_-_they_s#awesm=~ojXlyc6l507vMl
Description of Vietnamese nutrition project in
 Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. (2010). Design thinking for social
innovation.Development Outreach, 12(1), 29-43.