After reading Chapter 5, one thing that definitely piqued my interest was “power law” distribution. I had heard the term before (outside of a statistics class) but really couldn’t remember where I’d heard it. So as usual, I went to Wikipedia to look it up, and lo and behold it referenced where I had heard the term. I had read about it in a book by Malcolm Gladwell; he referenced the problems of homelessness as following a power law distribution. If you’re interested to know more the exact article from the book is here (It’s a really good read). However, what’s more interesting about my actions is that my first instinct was to go to Wikipedia.

See, I could’ve easily grabbed all of my Gladwell books and try to find the chapter referencing power law distribution, but that would’ve consumed more time than necessary, so naturally I went to Wikipedia. Over the years, despite claims of its illegitimacy, Wikipedia has become one of my go to sources for anything that I don’t know (as it has for most people). I would go so far as to argue that it is one of the most legitimate sources on the web, based on those qualities that Shirky describes. The beautiful thing about Wikipedia is that it’s based on unstructured collaboration. It succeeded where Nupedia failed (cruel irony?). Wikipedia for the most part is devoid of profit motives, or rigid hierarchical structures. The line between user and contributor is almost non existent. Furthermore, contributors exist in this weird kind of competitive atmosphere, where they constantly check each others facts and update articles with newer, more accurate information.

I believe that what Shirky is framing in Chapter 5 as well as 6 is that new media is removing obstacles and allowing users to collaborate with each other in unprecedented ways. I mean look at how quickly the Catholic Church had to react to all the negative publicity because of the way V.O.T.F was able to use new media tools to organize and spread its message. In my last post I referenced this sudden explosion in new media as being revolutionary, challenging the status quo, and I’m glad Shirky feels the same way. What V.O.T.F did was use new media to makes its voice heard to the Catholic Church. In the same way Wikipedia not only challenges the traditional encyclopedia, but also challenges our misconceptions of the effectiveness of unstructured collaboration. Tools such as Wikipedia, blogs, or even e-mail, are giving users the ability to not only create content, but distribute it to such diverse audiences on an unprecedented scale; and I hope that this will continue to be the norm.