Next generation (C) of user generation... Current.com

Current.com (Current TV to you and me) has hit the turbo button.

I could ramble on about all the cool new features and the wonderful community connections it creates, but you'd be better off (and way more entertained) by watching the video tutorial you'll find here.

I'm indebted to Richard Moynihan for giving me the heads up on this.

Richard said: "Current TV has relaunched its website now, converging its online presence with its TV channel. They've dropped the current.tv url and gone for an all-inclusive current.com."

I did get invited to the beta trial earlier this month (was there any current.tv user who wasn't?!?) - but I've been on hols so missed all the fun!

Here's what Current.com had to say about the new stuff:

"Current's new website is a place for you to connect to people and topics that are important and interesting to you - and when you do, you'll influence a global TV network.

• Explore cool stuff from the Web submitted by people like you
• Add things of your own and share them with your friends
• Watch and influence the full line-up of programming from Current TV
• Join the conversation ... with your keyboard or your webcam!"

It really is an exceptionally fully-featured user-centric, community-driven news (information) service.

What it does is connect two human needs - validation (through the repuations, ratings and some good old-fashion broadcast fame via the 'global TV network) and community.

I have a view about news I often quote (see below). Take a look at Current.com and see how close you think they've got...

"News is:

1. Personalised, real time, community-created, shared information.
2. Best gathered at the point of inspiration (on that handy converged device - the mobile)
3. Best distributed to the point of need (and, taking advantage of the always on, always with you nature of that same converged device, that's best served by mobile, too).

This draws from the understanding that it is the community that best serves its own needs. An individual cannot get this from a disaggregated collection of digitised information. They can from a... community of shared interest. The community emerges as the dominant force.

From: The Power of the Network = The Power of We: Why Media is the New Business Ecology.

What makes a great community?

Please join in trying to create a workable definition of what makes a great community. Post your thoughts and I'll gradually integrate them into the main body of this article (and of course your contributions will remain listed in the posts attached).

Your examples - with descriptions of what makes them so good - are also very welcome.

Here's some to get us going:

Great communities:

• Put the community first, understand that the community is king.
• Encourage self-forming, adhoc, non-directed groups of shared interest/purpose
• Apply Elinor Ostrom’s eight design properties for stable Common Pool Resource systems (recognizing the crucial role of ratings/reputation) (http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-ratings-and-reputation-are-so-vital.html)
• Activate co-creation of value (content, services, shared tools [widgets/apps] and products)
• Enable constant real-time connection (synchronous communication).
• Treat people as converged individuals – buyers/sellers/designers/engineers/creators/marketers/employees/employers
• Make the technical barriers low.
• Enable discovery/introduction of people with shared interests/purpose
  
• Enable users/communities to set their own definitions of good, and how open or closed their network will be.
• Enable users to get into flow rather than focus (ie manage the risk of information overload).
• Put the individual user in control
• Understands the distinction between audience and community: Audiences consume content, communities primarily communicate with one another. Communities communicate with one another, audiences don’t.
• A community is a community because of the connections that form between its members.
  

Great examples:

Facebook is extremely easy to use, encourages (rewards) the use of true identities, offers levels of privacy in groups, networks and in peer-to-peer friendship groups. There is even a small element of ‘degrees’ of friendship. The newsfeed offers something of the flow needed to manage risk of information overload – and the realtime connectivity (especially when accessed and updated from your pervasive computer – your mobile!).

eBay offers a good example of converged user – buyer/seller/marketer/developer etc. And it applies Ostron’s design principles for Common Pool Resources.

Danah Boyd: (from Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web2.0 Technologies in Everyday lives) "If you want to understand the success of a social technology, you can't stare at the technology. You need to understand the social practices that make it flourish. Technologies succeed when they support what people already do, what they want to do, and what they're required to do. Technologies become ubiquitous when people stop thinking them as a technology and simply use them as a regular part of everyday life."

Over to you!

Sprint Nextel reject customer feedback - and customers

When is feedback of negative value?

You know the right answer. US mobile operator Sprint Nextel does not.

This from Communities Dominate Brands:
"CNN has just a few moment ago reported that Sprint Nextel, in its infinite wisdom, has sent 1,000 of its customers a letter informing them that because they have placed too many calls to the calling center asking for help or complaining about the Sprint/Nextel services, they are terminating the customer relationship."

So if you have had an issue that's unresolved - and you keep on calling because they still haven't resolved it - ta ta!

Sprint Nextel could have saved themselves a lot of time and trouble by cutting to the chase - and sending every customer a letter saying: "We don't care what you think. If that bothers you f**k off now."

Other end of the telescope? If Sprint Nextel regarded itself of part of the community of Sprint Nextel users, what would it have done?

There is an argument that if these particular 1000 customers were having a disruptive and damaging influence on the community as a whole there should be some form of sanction - and ultimately exclusion.

But I'm told these are good customers, fully paid up etc. So what if you have an issue with Sprint Nextel? Are you meant to consider carefully whether or not you should share that with them?

"I'm sorry to trouble you, master, but is there any chance you could take your foot off my head?"

It's the best way I can think of to prevent two-way flow. No dialogue. No debate.

No customer relationship = no customers.

See also:

• Dehumanising customer relationships
• When is a free download not a free download?

Why ratings and reputation are so vital to a community

Ratings and their success in creating reputations - and Common-Pool Resources such as justice - are an essential element of any community.
Elinor Ostrom identified eight design properties for stable CPR systems:

1. Clearly defined boundaries
2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions
3. Collective-choice arrangements allowing for the participation of most of the appropriators in the decision making process
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators
5. Graduated sanctions for appropriators who do not respect community rules
6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms which are cheap and easy of access
7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize (e.g., by the government)
8. In case of larger CPRs: Organisation in the form of multiple layers of nested entreprises, with small, local CPRs at their bases.

If you can see past the language of academia... think of what eBay provides, how it ticks off those boxes - and you get a big hint as to why it's worked.

I was interested in the approach thegorb.com takes to ratings and reputation, in my post Social Consumers - and what ratings are for.

So I'm starting to consider how best to apply a rating system.

I'll float one that, for no good reason, I'll call Get Out of Dodge. In this community each member starts off with three tokens they can use. When they run out of these tokens they must 'Get Out of Dodge'.

They can use these tokens to indicate their displeasure at the behaviour of another member.
If a member gets hit with a total of three tokens against them - they have to get out of dodge.

The upside is that the community member really has to carefully consider their use of their tokens. Effectively, each time they use their token, while they damage the reputation of the other person, they also restrict their future choices within the community.

The downside is that the good policeman, the active regulator of the community - risks losing their choices, influence, and ultimately membership of the community.

But I have a caveat. Members of the community can come together to negotiate. If a group of people feel one other person really needs a token scored against them, but they haven't got enough left of their own, they may call on a token rich member of the community to 'pay' for them. They'll have to make a reasoned argument - and illustrate and reinforce the mores of the community as they go about it.

And there are bonus tokens available - handed out at the discretion of the community.

So good work, positive policing, fair management, gets rewarded. Holding more of these tokens to spend clearly gives you greater influence/control over the community.

I'm not at all precious about this - it's just a thought experiment - and your suggestions are very welcome. So what do we think?