The Connection Between Google, WalMart and MyBarackObama.com
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Tim O’Reilly draws parallels between Google, Walmart and MyBarackObama.com to argue that the real value of web 2.0 is in “the use of the network as a platform to build systems that get better the more people use them” and not in harnessing explicit user contribution –
I came to see just how closely MyBarackObama.com emulated these ideas of the real-time enterprise in accounts of the Houdini project, a bold program in which poll watchers eliminated the names from voters who had actually made it to the polling station from the “get out the vote” call lists.
MyBarackObama.com definitely harnessed explicit contribution, providing a platform for volunteers to organize and host local calling parties, to blog, or perform other campaign activities. But ultimately, Obama’s ground game–old fashioned precinct-level organizing, amped up to a new level by an army of distributed volunteers armed with mobile phones and coordinated via a web application–was the key to his victory. The “explicit” social media elements of MyBarackObama.com paled in impact compared to the development of a next generation electronic nervous system, in which volunteers were trained, deployed, and managed by a web application who used them, in John McMullen’s memorable phrase, as “souls in the great machine.
Tim O’Reilly is right that it’s easier to understand explicit human coordination than implicit network contribution. Perhaps, ‘What Would Google Do?’ by Jeff Jarvis will bring more such examples into the mainstream.