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August 5, 2006
The Benkler-Calacanis Smackdown Over Digg
During his talk at the Wikimania conference this morning, Yochai Benkler criticized Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis, saying he didn't get it because he's been hiring away peer producers participating in Digg, making them instantaneous elites and changing the dynamic of the community. When he said this, Yochai probably didn't know that Jason was listening in the audience. During the questions period, Jason got up and introduced himself, referring to himself as a fan of Benkler's work and noting that there really wasn't as much of a gap between them as Benkler might think. Jason then said that projects like Wikipedia even have some paid staff - often people who were previously volunteers. This is just a reality of today's online business world, he explained, just like there are paid firefighters and volunteer ones, yet both classes of firefighters do great work, regardless of getting paid or not.
Yochai vs. Jason, united via Photoshop. Jason Calacanis photo by Electric Sheep. Jochai Benkler photo by Kittens Toe.
Used in accordance with their Creative Commons licenses.
Benkler acknowledged that this was all "tricky business." But what he disliked about Jason's actions was that he interpreted Jason's "attack" on Digg as generating a split between those who might be perceived as "the really useful people" (ie, those who get paid) and everyone else who participates as a volunteer. This split ends up hurting the community. He described this dilemma as "the major challenge for business today" as they figured out how to "wrap themselves" around peer-content production culture.
Jason then wanted to respond but the session organizer cut it off, told him to "take it offline," and wouldn't let him speak. One person clapped; many others in the audience looked really disappointed the conversation had been quashed. I'll watch and see if anything transpires after the session. -andy
digg it
tag: wikimania2006
Posted by acarvin at August 5, 2006 11:03 AM
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