andycarvin.com — During his talk at the Wikimania conference, Yochai Benkler criticized Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis, saying he didn't get it because he's been hiring away Digg participants, making them instantaneous elites and changing the dynamic of the community. When he said this, Yochai probably didn't know that Jason was in the audience.
Aug 5, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountAug 6, 2006
Calacanis, you got TOLD.
jeremybanksAug 6, 2006
You have a total of 6 Diggs, you apparently feels that way about every topic.
Closed AccountAug 6, 2006
Indeed, shallow AND pedantic.I agree as well, shallow and pedantic.My fav episode of all time. Who doesn't love the firetrucks?
hangtownAug 6, 2006
Not sure why this has been voted down, I see it as completely valid. A vast majority of the so-called web 2.0 ideas are worthless... and although I tend to find sites like Digg generate a lot of noise and little in the way of truly thought out responses, at least the founders of Digg followed through and clearly had a purpose, believe in it, and are working to improve it constantly. It seems the majority of the web 2.0 sites exist simply because they hope by existing yahoo will buy them out.BTW, if someone does offer Kevin Rose tens of millions for Digg at some point and he does take it, everyone who acts like he is a sell out is a hypocrite. We all know we would take the millions. Having financial security is not a bad thing, and in the case of Kevin I doubt it would stop him from working on future projects.Although I rarely comment on digg due to the high noise level, I do think Kevin and everyone else involved in Digg has one of the handful of truly useful web 2.0 sites around.
raj3Aug 6, 2006
It's not so much that I have a problem with the idea of paying users, as I have a problem with Calacanis himself. I've never heard of him before this actually, but I've been checking out his blog ever since "the offer," and let me be straightforward, the guy is obnoxious.He has been making ridiculous claims that Digg is "exploiting users," as if Diggers were sweatshop workers, not to mention the personal attacks. Seriously, just skim his blog posts for the past week."Kevin Rose cracks (or "how to know when you've won the debate")" - Calacanis is real class act.
pamonAug 6, 2006
Calcanis is an ***hole... somone out did him and he's been wining about it. The whole netscape nightmare was a PR stunt.. Who the hell uses netscape anymore? All who listened to Calcanis on TWIT that week knows he's a whiny little *itch
crazyguy821Aug 6, 2006
Equating this to firefighting is absolutely idiotic. Firefighting arises from a necessity, either paid or volunteer they are obligated to respond and held to high standards by both the law and society.And it brings up one of my largets pet peeves as a firefighter. The volunteer vs paid misconception. The majority of firefighters in the US are volunteer (70%). Many people dont realize their local firefighters are volunteer, if they are support them anyway you can, either by volunteering if you have what it takes or through donations and help around the station.Back on topic- I just dont see how he can draw a correlation between the two, user submitted news on the internet is not a necessity. The only reason all firefighters are not paid is the extremely high cost of operating. Todays well equipped firefighter goes in a burning building with $7,000+ of gear and equipment. The trucks we drive cost anywhere between $250,000-$600,000 and they eat through diesel. As you can imagine insurance is sky high because of the increased risk of bodily injury and equipment loss as well as auto accidents as a result of running emergency traffic. Without accounting for paid staff a single station fire department can have operating cost starting in the hundreds up to thousands of US dollars a day.So again how does the need for fire protection equate to internet tech news?
darknessgpAug 7, 2006
Have to agree with Calacanis here. It's stupid to think that what Netscape is doing is underhanded. They offered users from major social networking sites an opportunity. And Kevin/Digg isn't exploiting anyone more than normal sites that run with ads do. Yes, Digg would not be a success without the users. Just like google, Magazines, TV shows, etc. There are plenty of things that run solely on ads and they get paid if so many people are viewing their show. There is a reason TV shows get pulled after only a few episodes. It doesn't pull in enough viewers...The one thing I don't like about Netscape is that it looks like a Digg clone. The way stories are laid out look alot like the way they are on Digg. I don't care if they want to make a social networking site. Just be original.
fastfwdAug 10, 2006
This all makes so much more sense after reading this. I was at this Wikimania conference session and witnessed the exchange. At the time, I was really clueless about just what had precipitated the exchange and how it might be relevant to anything that interested me. I have long been a fan of Kevin since the Screen Saver days. I honestly haven’t been keeping up with the Digg site that closely, but I am thrilled to see Kevin have his idea rewarded with such great success. Beyond my personal bias toward being a fan of Kevin I believe that I am caught up in a devastating scandal that is being ignored by the main stream media. This is where I believe that my interest in citizen journalism and the idea of paid or unpaid ‘peer-content production culture’ might intersect. I am weary of how commercialization might influence these emerging tools. I felt a great sense of concern for this at the conference sessions that I attended. How to effectively motivate contribution was a theme that I felt was reoccurring. I can really appreciate the caution and concern for how commercialization might effect these tools. I think there are some great minds at work seeking to provide guidance. Here are a few still photos of the continued debate after the presentation. <a class="user" href="http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5012/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanisfh8.jpg">http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5012/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanisfh8.jpg</a><a class="user" href="http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg">http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg</a><a class="user" href="http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg">http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg</a>
fastfwdAug 13, 2006
My apologies for the duplicate link… here is the other photo from the after lecture debate: <a class="user" href="http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5147/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis3vs0.jpg">http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5147/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis3vs0.jpg</a>