Last year, our first round of research projects was funded and many have been completed. I thought it would be useful to provide links to the finished papers. Kevin Boudreau and Karim Lakhani, "How Disclosure Policies Impact Search in Open Innovation" Most of society’s innovation systems–academic science, the patent system, open source, etc.–are “open” in … Continue reading Completed Research Projects (2014)
Category: User Contributions
Should Wikipedia have robot helpers?
Wikipedia is famously open to anyone to edit. In practice, whether your edits sustain themselves depends upon other Wikipedia editors and the enforcement of various norms and rules that have emerged. The WSJ highlighted a new type of Wikipedia editor -- essentially a robot. Sverker Johansson could be the most prolific author you've never heard of. Volunteering … Continue reading Should Wikipedia have robot helpers?
“Selling out” and music piracy
Piracy is everywhere but in music artists' supply. That's the strong impression I get from the academic literature on the subject. There is evidence that piracy has reduced straight-up music sales revenue but overall it is unclear whether digitisation has impacted adversely on artist returns (because they make up losses with concert revenue and the … Continue reading “Selling out” and music piracy
Funding Opportunity on the Peer Economy
This should interest readers of this blog with a funding opportunity from Microsoft Fuse. Request for Proposals - Peer Economy Research Awards SCHEDULE AND DEADLINES RFP released: May 19, 2014 Two-page proposal submission deadline: June 6, 2014 Notification of results: Mid June, 2014 OVERVIEW A number of technological platforms, often referred to as the "sharing economy," … Continue reading Funding Opportunity on the Peer Economy
New paper on Remix Rights
When Ronald Coase passed away last year, it occurred to me that no one had really applied a Coasian framework to the characterisation of copyright regimes. I had been interested in these since reading Larry Lessig's book, Remix. Remixing is where users take original content (such as the Harlem Shake) and put it in new … Continue reading New paper on Remix Rights
What contribution economy is all about???
Sometimes I am asked to explain what we are trying to do at ContributionEconomy.net. My best answer is to investigate the non-monetary motivations for innovation and knowledge creation and distribution. That helps define it against other scholarly endeavours. This week, Wil Wilkinson went deeper in his post on "old school blogging." I'm not sure which bits … Continue reading What contribution economy is all about???
Funding Opportunities
There are two broad funding opportunities in 2014 from the Research Program on the Economics of Knowledge Contribution and Distribution funded by the Sloan Foundation (see contributioneconomy.net for more details). First, there are research grants available. The Research Program on the Economics of Knowledge Contribution and Distribution funded by the Sloan Foundation is looking for proposals for research related to the following topics: * The impact of open … Continue reading Funding Opportunities
The motivations of Amazon reviewers
There is a very interesting Planet Money podcast about Amazon reviewers. The podcast focusses on top reviewers. These are people who are at the top of Amazon's own reviewer rankings. They get there by writing lots of reviews and also on the quality of their reviews measured in part by whether consumers found the reviews … Continue reading The motivations of Amazon reviewers
Free content supply and the slavery charge
In a New York Times piece entitled "Slaves of the Internet, Unite!" writer, Tim Kreider, revisits a theme common amongst writers -- particular writers now of my age-vintage -- that they do not like being asked to contribute pieces for free. His argument is two-fold. First, why isn't it a breach of appropriate social norms to ask for something that … Continue reading Free content supply and the slavery charge
Wikipedia and editor bias
Wikipedia operates on a set of norms that are designed to prevent bias from creeping in. But when an editor "goes rouge" and starts pursuing their own agenda things get ugly. In Salon there is an account of one such editor. It is concluded that we should not trust Wikipedia. But my sense is that … Continue reading Wikipedia and editor bias
Contribution Economy 