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Recently, Gord Hotchkiss, the President of
Enquiro, discussed the
Social
Fabric of Search and how the Wisdom of Crowds is shaping the future of
how we find and access information. Some of the most powerful
up-and-comers are cited, including Search Wikia, Stumbleupon, Digg and
he focuses on Yahoo Answers giving us possible clues as to Yahoo's
strategy for meeting Google and MSN head-on. I’m a huge believer in
the power and knowledge of a team, and there can’t be enough said about
the potential of community and social search either. I don’t believe
we’ve even scratched the surface there. Amazon had no idea what they
were starting when they let users review and rate the products from
their site. That was really the crack in the dam that triggered the rest
of us into changing our perspective on this one-way internet thing.
But we’ve all seen Frankenstein and the Elephant Man… What is it that
makes mob mentality different from the wisdom of crowds? What is it that
turns a peaceful protest into tear gas and jail time? It’s likely that
some people would say police brutality, while others would say a bit too
much passion turning to violence amongst the affected.
As Gord mentions in his post, “the biggest challenge with this
variation of social search is that it depends on the engagement of
individual members of the community”. But, even though it is social
searches biggest challenge, I believe it is also its saving grace.
The big difference that I can see between the
Digg or
Stumbleupon
model and the peaceful protest is that, though these members are part of
a larger group, they are contributing to that group individually,
equally, without one Alpha member running the show, ensuring that no one
member has any more power than another, except through their own trended
reputation on the individual portals. Whereas, in the peaceful protest,
all it takes is one member in the center of the group to start an
immediate fire that, barring a miracle, cannot be controlled through
quick and efficient PR.
This is not to say that fires do not happen, because they do,
irresponsible businesses have seen their reputation crumble through
defamation generating buzz. See,
Dell Hell, and the public’s shift in
how they viewed Dell’s customer service after a few particular blog
posts venting their thoughts caught the attention of the community.
Since then, Dell Hell has become part of the global vernacular,
describing the level of service offered by Dell.
But, as long as your organization is responsible, has a good head for
discussion amongst your communities, and plays a part in constructively
using the feedback from your audience in order to give them what they
want, there are endless opportunities popping up all the time. |
enquiro research
