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The Internet Books Media

Using Social Networking Tools to Write a Book 61

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the until-you-reach-critical-mass-then-you-become-stupid dept.
WikiTiki writes "Safari Books Online has a new interview with Barry Libert, one of the authors of 'We are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business.' Barry and his coauthors decided to create a wiki and invite the community to help build this book which aims to give advice on using social networking tools like blogs and wikis to businesses. Barry has some interesting comments about both the challenges and payoffs in using social networking tools to create a book about social networking tools."
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Using Social Networking Tools to Write a Book More

Using Social Networking Tools to Write a Book

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  • Using social networking to whitewash a fence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:11PM (#20985993)
    Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with - and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar - but no dog - the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.

    He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while - plenty of company - and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

    Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

    The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report.

    -- Mark Twain [pbs.org]

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by nilbud ( 1155087 )
      Bang on the money, I'd say except the fence would never be finished and use 16 different shades of white.
    • In 1969 a group of writers decided to write a book together. The basic idea was that it should be badly written and still become a best-seller, just to demonstrate how bad was the American cultural standard at the time. For some time it was the #1 best-seller book in the US. Read more about it in Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        Just a note to anyone else currently at work - the picture that accompanies the linked-to article (naked woman, kneeling, sat on her heels, viewed from behind) may not be appropriate for your office environment. YMMV, this has been a public service announcement, etc.

    • Distributed authorship for a book: bad

      Distributed authorship for code: the only acceptable alternative

      Help?

  • read it (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:16PM (#20986077) Homepage
    Barry and his coauthors decided to create a wiki and invite the community to help build this book

    I think I've seen his book. There's a 600 page chapter that consists solely of links to online pharmacies.

  • Skeptical about mob rule (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tjstork ( 137384 ) <todd DOT bandrowsky AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:20PM (#20986109) Homepage Journal
    I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical about the premise that bringing more people into a problem will somehow make it better. Usually, the biggest disasters that have befallen mankind have had a committee in it somewhere, and a lot of this collaboration stuff really just is a way of even forming bigger committees. At some point, anything genuinely great happens because an individual groks the whole thing and jumps to the center of the stage with an answer. Sure, Linux has a bunch of contributors, and that's cool, but if you look in a bit more closely, it's really a federation of projects driven by a bunch of maniacal owners and visionaries.
    • Perhaps "we are smarter than me", but "we are also dumber than me". So how do you gather the smart bits and leave out the dumb bits? Perhps the answer is to use some sort of Linux-like peer review + benign dictator mechanisms. That might appeal to techies who see the benefit in code control, but will it work for the great unwashed; all hoping for their 15 words of fame and getting upset becuase they get edited out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by skeeto ( 1138903 )
      The book Code 2.0 [amazon.com] was written online in a wiki.

  • Did you know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:21PM (#20986139) Homepage Journal
    ...that the amount of social networking elephants has tripled in the past six months?

  • Actually, he's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:26PM (#20986195)
    "We" is only smarter than "me" if "I" am below average intelligence or "we" are very small in number. A chess grandmaster would easily beat the whole of /. if we were voting for our moves. In fact the only way to make "we" smart enough to win such a game would be to have another grandmaster vetoing the choices. In which case, what does he need us for?

    TWW

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ZombieWomble ( 893157 )
      Interestingly, the game you describe was played, almost exactly. [wikipedia.org] Kasparov played the MSN chess community, and beat them after a rather long game. The fact that it was a rather long game is less surprising when you realise that the game was in no way mob rule, but was in fact guided on what moves to vote for by four or five officially appointed chess masters. Other similar projects which lacked this fudge factor ended rather earlier, it seems.
      • Kasparov vs the world [wikipedia.org] highlights what's wrong with the collaborative process.

        Egos

        The grandmasters guiding the discussion boards biased the voters.

        • "[move 16] sparked loud grumbling on the bulletin board that Krush had "taken over the game". Those who complained were not overstating Krush's influence; her recommendations were selected every single move from the 10th to the 50th.
        • But perhaps even greater than the effect of [Kasparov's 35th move] on the position was its effect on the psyche of the bulle

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ccalvert ( 126669 )
      It depends what you are trying to do. If you are trying to predict the outcome of the next election, for instance, polling a large number of people is more effective than asking any one expert -- unless the expert happens to be a pollster. If you trying to understand what material appeals to the widest range of readers, then asking for input from a large number of people would be a good idea. If you don't have access to a major media outlet, and you want to reach a large audience, then using social networki

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Procasinator ( 1173621 )

      In which case, what does he need us for?

      Obviously, he would need us to say the funny things! Chess grandmasters are notorious for be unfunny!

      I claim "You sunk my battleship" everytime we lose a piece. So everyone else, get your own jokes!

    • "We" is only smarter than "me" if "I" am below average intelligence or "we" are very small in number.
      None of us is as dumb as all of us. [despair.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by vertinox ( 846076 )
      A chess grandmaster would easily beat the whole of /. if we were voting for our moves. In fact the only way to make "we" smart enough to win such a game would be to have another grandmaster vetoing the choices.

      Chess is an example of linear application. You can only make one choice at a time. Its easy to scale to one person or computer.

      This is why a computer can beat Gary and a group of humans can't. Now if the task is parallel then many persons can help.

      Take your old animation houses for Disney. It doesn't
      • Quality =/= quantity. Sure you can get a book 500 pages long written in an hour by using 500 people, but its not going to be better than one written by (insert name of your favorite author here). "We" is only smarter than "me" when "we" are all of above-average intelligence and specialists in our respective areas.
  • ...you can use blogs and social networking sites to improve your bussiness...

    ...especially if you're into selling private data.
  • What exactly is the point of a social networking site? I've used slashdot for about 5 years regularly, read the articles etc, but I've never really made use of the friend/foe tagging.. I've never bothered to message others, or see their journals... So, what's the point of a site that takes all the crap that I don't want to know about and make that it's sole purpose?
    • That is actually a very good point, I am with you in the that boat and rarely take advantage of the "community" features of any site I visit. I maintain a myspace page, err I have a myspace page that I have not made any changes to since I set it up. Also the only reason I even have one is because my family uses it to share photos and I have been unable to convince them to use a photo sharing site of some kind. To be honest though, I have been much to lazy to do any research on which ones are any good.
      • Thanks for agreeing with me. Now my next point is that the media have put some fear around the facebook/myspace/bebo pages through saying that they're full of paedophiles. That's just got the ball rolling by making others think there are actually people there to meet. It sickens me.. It's just another medium for transferring crap and boring stories about dull and insignificant lives. Why cant they all just find a project on sourceforge to go and document or translate? Never underestimate the stupidity of la

    • I've used slashdot for about 5 years regularly, read the articles etc, but I've never really made use of the friend/foe tagging..

      Sorry dude, we didn't want to say anything, but no one likes you.

      But seriously, social network sites help in communicating with real-life friends, displaying photos and stalking girls and/or guys (to be PC) that you like.

      So, they do have uses even for those who are not prepubescent teens - though them young and immature kinda wreck it for the rest of us.

      Anyway, you soun

      • I agree with you completely, too many people trash social networking. Now myspace is a horrible, god awful mess of html, images, and other such newb perversions of the internet, but, my girlfriend from sixth grade just found me in the other tab.
      • "But seriously, social network sites help in communicating with real-life friends, displaying photos and stalking girls and/or guys (to be PC) that you like. "

        Seriously...email has been GREAT for doing all of this...so, what does the social network offer as an advantage (besides some horrible HMTL)?

        • Well, for starters, email is a push technology. That means, you get photos/news/whatever data from me when I feel like sending them to you. When it is social networking sites, you can view stuff about me when you want (if you want to at all).

          Other reasons include:

          • It is a big waste of resources. I'm sending photos to everyone, when it doesn't really need to be distributed.
          • People change emails, accounts on social network sites are more manageable
          • Communications with other friends becomes more transpare
    • I have moved 5000 miles across the Atlantic with work on a project. I'm on Facebook, and through the local network on there I've made some good friends - because it's not primarily a dating site it's a good way to get to know people without the desperation / pressure that dating sites can have. And without the pressure, one of my friends has become more than just a friend.

      It's been good because the nature of my work means that otherwise I'd just end up hanging out with other expats, and after a month or two
      • Are you going to feel happy meeting someone else who spends all their time in front of a computer terminal cruising facebook? I think not. So you're going to be better off joining some sports clubs. Look out for tennis, ice skating, jogging, swimming, anything, just not computer terminal stuff. Of course if you want that sort of relationship look out for some IETF meetings in your area.
        • I can sure as hell agree that there are people from some websites that I have no interest in meeting. The point is that people put their interests on their FB profiles. So rather than just sitting around typing on there, I'm learning to scuba dive with someone. And found a local Hash House Harriers club through someone on there that has no website or local advertising. I'm not trying to sound like an evangelist for it - I was dubious about its value for a long time. But as I said it is an additional avenu

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mdwh2 ( 535323 )
          Are you going to feel happy meeting someone else who spends all their time in front of a computer terminal cruising facebook? I think not.

          As opposed to spending all your time on Slashdot? I mean, people here probably spend more time on computers than most people :p

          And I don't see why using Facebook implies excessive computer usage, any more than say, using email. The Internet is mainstream now - it's just another communication tool, like phones. Those sports club members will no doubt use the Internet, comm
  • Remember the whole "smart mobs" fad? The word would go out through a "social network" to show up on some street corner at some appointed time. And a few hundred people did it a couple of times, "proving the theory." How many of those happen any more? None. You can convince a mob of people do anything, once. The only reason why these phenomena work is that people love to do what other people are doing. But once they try it and find out it's the same stuff, in a new wrapper, game's up. Now, if you're a mar

  • Brilliant! (Score:4, Funny)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:48PM (#20986543)
    1. Announce book topic showing the power of crowds, invite others to write your book for you to prove the thesis
    2. Sit back, sip iced tea.
    3. Profit.

    Underpants gnomes ain't got shit on this guy.
  • 1) Open a social network / wiki
    2) Get the social network to write a book about social networks for you
    3) Profit!

    (oddly, there's no ??? in there!)

  • Mass Authoring is a steaming pile (Score:5, Interesting)

    by water-and-sewer ( 612923 ) on Monday October 15, 2007 @04:23PM (#20987127) Homepage

    Sorry for the inflammatory subject line, but I am the author of a best selling travel guidebook to Nicaragua http://www.gotonicaragua.com/ [gotonicaragua.com]. Travel guidebooks are one area that are the frequent subject of ill-fated "let's do a travel wiki" ideas that immediately turn into steaming piles of horse crap. Here's why: the crowds are stupid; many can't write, and everyone's pushing an agenda.

    The reason why travel guidebooks continue to sell in the Internet age is because the Internet is a huge, unfettered mixing bowl of ignorance. People are still willing to turn to professional writers and editors to sort through all the horse crap and turn it into something concise, concrete, and helpful. I too would prefer to pay $17 for a book for my next trip to Morocco than trawl through the Internet forums trying to separate fact from fiction from propaganda.

    These travel wikis come and go, but they all bear the same characteristics: huge number of Google ads, a couple of lame wiki posts that two or more prolific authors debate back and forth without conclusion, and huge chunks of background material, insight, or commentary. The masses can't produce that, and anyone who's ever participated in a corporate meeting where 7 people need to come to a conclusion about something they differ in opinion about, knows why.

    There's a place for this kind of approach, but mass authoring as I've seen it done, only works if one person is the lead author and has near dictatorial privileges and the diplomacy and savvy to use that power wisely. If you let the madhouse run the party, you get a madhouse. And that's why people like me can still earn the big bucks selling travel information to a place like Nicaragua in the Internet age.

    By the way, I helped introduce Linux to Nicaragua. That ought to be worth something on Slashdot! http://therandymon.com/content/view/68/98/ [therandymon.com].

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I beg to differ, Wikitravel.org is doing pretty fine without any Google ads and has loads of well-written guides for locations around the world. In fact, during my last summer's round trip around Europe, I found it to be more accurate and up-to-date in many listings than the few years old travel guide I had with me. I'm now a semi-frequent contributor to the site myself and definitely see a future for sites like Wikitravel which will always feature fresher content than their printed "competitors".

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 )
      I've written a series of three articles [lightandmatter.com] (the first two of which ran on slashdot) about free books. The first article (from 2000) discusses the fact that a lot of free books were getting written, but almost none of them by open collaborations with lots of people in them (but almost none != zero). The third one (from 2005) discusses wikibooks, which has utterly failed at the group authoring model for college textbooks (which was its initially stated goal), but has done well with some other genres, such as gam

  • No go (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    This was tried on the C2 wiki (the first web wiki, actually), at least as a "story", and it was a disaster. Part of the problem was that everybody had a different idea of the kind and style of book it would be. It was hurky jurky, going from one style to another.

    In one paragraph it may go into detail about the beauty of the main love interest of the story, and then in the next paragraph a meteor smashes into her, killing her.

    The next few chaptures talk about how the detective tries to prove that the meteor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by WNight ( 23683 ) *
      That's because it's as if everyone started coding the same way, throwing out functions in various languages, nothing links, changes breaking everything, yet everything mutating wildly because nobody can agree on the desired outcome.

      But that's not how you code. You figure out a goal, what you want to say you've achieved when you're done.

      For a book, "A novel about X", and a rough structure, then people throw out low-level ideas "meteor kills love-interest", "conspiracies!", etc. You figure out what people wan
  • No one modded above "3".

    (Oh, there must be a voting mob clobbering down the scores...)
  • Someone call me when their contributors sue for royalties.

  • "Naked Came the Stranger" [wikipedia.org], by "Penelope Ashe" was published in 1969. It was actually written by 24 writers, five women and nineteen men, mostly newspaper reporters. It was an effort "to collaborate on a sexually explicit novel with no literary or social value whatsoever."

    Huge commercial success. Made the New York Times best seller list.

  • ...is it backward compatible with web 1.0?

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