When I first read the assignment for this week’s blog, I said to myself, as did probably a lot of you, WTF!!!!!! What is this? What is Commons-Based Peer Production? It must not be that important if I have never heard of it before! Well, I was wrong! To explain it down simply Yochai Benkler states; “Peer production is production that harnesses the creative energies of many self-selecting participants without any financial compensation and lacking a formal managerial structure”. Examples of this would be GNU/Linux, Apache, Perl, SETI@home, NASA Clickworkers, Wikipedia, Slashdot.
So the answer to the question is why not! I believe that as long as there is a platform provided and people sharing a common interest or goal, products or services can and will be generated with Commons-Based Peer Production methodologies. It is already being done today at a rate that is changing the way the world and how corporations and society are operating. As long as people are willing to donate their own time and effort to, what they believe is justified, than the possibilities are endless. Think of this scenario, do you remember when the millionaire Steve Fossett’s airplane went missing a few years ago? People, in their spare time and working towards a general cause, used Google Earth to search the Nevada Dessert in hopes to find the plane wreckage and if they found something suspicious they were suppose to flag it. The response was massive and the wreckage of the plane was found.
People are using Commons-Based Peer Production to help make the world and society a better place. What is good for you and I may not be good for the pocket books of some companies though. Some of the products and services that have been generated now are threatening some of the Market-based, decentralized systems. Take Skype for example, how much money do you think is being taken away from telephone companies’ bottom-line every year when people choose to use Skype and talk long distance and/or overseas? I would say millions! But, as long as Commons-Based Peer Production is free for its users and for its makers, society today will continue to evolve at the rapid rate that it is today. Who knows maybe you and I can help develop the next technological advance.
These are the following resources that I found helpful in explaining Commons-Based Peer Production.
I like how you started off your blog by expressing your feelings towards this week’s question. I was feeling the same way, a bit confused as to what Commons-Based Peer Production is and why I had never heard of it before. As well I agree with your thoughts about is continuing on for a long time to come because as long as we have users and creative developers willing to participant in creating these produces cooperatively, then this method with grow on. I never knew about the situation you gave about using Google Earth to help locate the missing plane that is just another great site/application that is available for user to interact with just like Wikipedia and eBay etc. You said that Commons-Based Peer Production is helping to turn the world and society into a better place; do you think that it can also have a negative effect on society as a whole? Or is it strictly making a positive impact on the world in which we live?
ReplyDeleteHi Dawn, I really enjoyed reading your blog and found it really funny the way your started it. I felt the same way about common based peer production and believe that most of us did as well. I liked the way that you used Steve Fossett’s airplane crash as an expample, it really shows how CBPP can be really helpful.
ReplyDeletejennifer glynn
I love the way you started you blog. I’m happy to see that I’m not the only one that was totally lost when I first began to read about what Commons-Based Peer Production is. The airplane crash incident you used was a great example of how CBPP can be very beneficial to everyone. I’m sure it has its downfalls but I believe the pros outweigh the cons, and society as a whole can benefit from CBPP.
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