Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.
The Benkler-Calacanis Smackdown Over Digg
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.
andycarvin- 679 diggs
- digg it
- kaytrio, on 10/12/2007, -11/+33Calacanis, you got TOLD.
- Bioshocker, on 10/12/2007, -10/+26404 Smackdown Not Found
Sounds like they just had a bit of a discussion about it and then the moderator did his job. - Bioshocker, on 10/12/2007, -9/+28Ah *****, I forgot. He's the *enemy*. I have to express hatred of him or I will get buried.
Yes, he totally got owned. Being challenged on his views and discussing them in a reasonable adult manner, then having the moderator step in to suggest that it was pointless to let the wider discussion get sidetracked by one issue ... WAS SUCH A SMACKDOWN! Gee, he must've felt so dumb, like he got totally served. I'm sure he's rethinking his whole business plan as we speak after such a public humiliation!!! - andycarvin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Not sure about the moderator "doing his job." I wish I'd recorded it, because I was kinda shocked at how annoyed the moderator seemed, like it was personal or something. Meanwhile, the moderator let others ask followup questions, even though the followups weren't as potentially interesting. Having done a lot of moderating myself, I wouldn't have cut it off so suddenly.
- crazyguy821, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Equating 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? - Chongo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This entire story and the resulting debate should only stay within the realm of the business world. When I read things about it venturing into things like rifts between users or "hurting the community", the only thought I have is that some people should just unplug and step back from the computer.
- Bioshocker, on 10/12/2007, -10/+26404 Smackdown Not Found
- Shinta, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Web 2.0 has created a new age of people trying to make a name of themselves on the internet.
- hangtown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Not 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.
- hangtown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Not 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.
- SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -14/+42Calacanis is shallow and pedantic
- bitt3n, on 10/12/2007, -27/+18yeah but he has quite a shapely ass.
oh wait, I'm thinking of Jessica Alba. she's kind of a vapid whore though.
oh wait, I'm thinking of Jason Calcanis - oOLiquidNightOo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1pedantic |pəˈdantik| adjective of or like a pedant : many of the essays are long, dense, and too pedantic to hold great appeal.
i guess the majority of us diggers are pedantic. - Sharkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Indeed, shallow AND pedantic.
I agree as well, shallow and pedantic.
My fav episode of all time. Who doesn't love the firetrucks? - raj3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It'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.
- bitt3n, on 10/12/2007, -27/+18yeah but he has quite a shapely ass.
- Roger, on 10/12/2007, -21/+2http://www.downloadsquad.com/ gets most of its content from digg.
- heresy, on 10/12/2007, -19/+12Digg has NO content. All Digg does is link people to content. At least Download Squad has editorial writing about the articles they link to.
- uberwaffle, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5I don't know why heresy is being dugg down, since what he said is an inherent truth, although he did say it a bit harshly.
- rhizome, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Heresy is being dugg down because he ignores the gleamingly obvious fact that commentary is content.
Including his. - heresy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3rhizome,
No site is going to link to a Digg comment. Therefore it is not in the same league as an actual article. When other sites starting ripping comments from Digg and posting them as news is when you can use the argument that Digg's comments are worth anything as content.
My argument was pointing out that Download Squad isn't leeching anything from Digg because Digg doesn't produce the articles they link to and write about.
- cyberghost232, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27Netscape still looks like crap whether or not anyone is getting payed to submit aticles to the site. Most voted on story on the home page has 155 comments so far and only 39 "Votes".Do they know about the vote button? Calacacaface screwed that one up bad. I used to like that site. Now. Not so much.
- Lurk3r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Wow, I was going to digg you down but I totally remembered when digg started out with their very first story getting over 1000 diggs.
Wait, that didnt happen. - DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4What was Digg.com's traffic before it became a social news site?
Now what was Netscape.com's traffic before it became a social news site?
- Lurk3r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Wow, I was going to digg you down but I totally remembered when digg started out with their very first story getting over 1000 diggs.
- mcdrewbie, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2Sheesh, you guys don't have to digg every story that mentions Digg.
- kp3469, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8you're right! we don't *have* to, and that's what makes it democratic. or a close approximation thereof. of course, if its an article about Calacannabis we will digg the ever living hell out of it. because we no likey him.
- JeremyBanks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You have a total of 6 Diggs, you apparently feels that way about every topic.
- Avius, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Calacanis it's such a frat boy, he needs to get laid.
- wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22After listening to Calcanis completely ruin an episode of TWiT, I'm for anything that makes this asshat look bad. +Digg
- AMSRay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I thought he was kind of a jerk watching him on TWIT #57, and that was before he started this pimping for users.
- applepro, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Slashdot was 5 years ago and Netscape was 5 years before that.
- TheCount, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13It's common knowledge that no one has a bigger opinion of Calacanis than Calacanis. The man obviously considers himself a giant among men, self-proclaimed leader of the 2.0 movement and destined to be counted among the genius' of this era.
He clearly has no wish to share that role with anyone, especially not Kevin Rose. - allthewhile, on 10/12/2007, -11/+10So wait, Jason tries to pay the people that makes the sites the money, while digg just heaps all the financial benefits and doesn't give back any money and you guys are pissed? WTF.
- heresy, on 10/12/2007, -14/+7I definitely agree. Calacanis is at least rewarding those who poured time into driving Digg so Kevin Rose can have his name plastered all over the place. How about Kevin Rose and all the other Digg employees start working for free like the members who drive the system?
Remember Systm, TheBroken, and all the IPTV stuff that was promised by Revision3 that all died when Digg blew up? If Digg wasn't such a big success, we would have actual content. You are calling these people who are now getting paid by Netscape sell-outs? Kevin Rose is the real sell-out. - sunchild, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7You could look at it that way, or you could see it as Netscape trying to pillage critical elements of Digg's userbase by hiring its most active posters. Of course, the problem is that Digg will only grow stronger. And those formerly-most-active-Diggers will drift into irrelevance. I can already feel the winds of resentment and betrayal blowing against dirtyfratboy et al.
- jadedknight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10You are not here for cash rewards. You are here for the community. The news. And the wealth of interesting and cool knowledge...and the occasional douches who you poke fun at :)
- DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Jason tries to pay the people that makes the sites the money, while digg just heaps all the financial benefits and doesn't give back any money and you guys are pissed? WTF."
No it's just that the concepts of "user driven" and "social network" means that everyone is on the same footing and is given the exact same means and motivations to make of the site what they will. Paying select users for a quota of submissions just makes Netscape just every other blog or moderator driven news site that we've had for awhile. - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More importantly:
I can be making money submitting stories? Since most of mine have been non-blog and without spelling errors... uhhh.. see ya?
- heresy, on 10/12/2007, -14/+7I definitely agree. Calacanis is at least rewarding those who poured time into driving Digg so Kevin Rose can have his name plastered all over the place. How about Kevin Rose and all the other Digg employees start working for free like the members who drive the system?
- gelicia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12nerd fight
- andycarvin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7fwiw, Josh Bartlett got Jason and Yochai on video continuing the discussion after the session.
http://www.tinyscreenfuls.com/2006/08/wikimania-2006-jason-calacanis-and-yochai-benkler/- JoshB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm Josh Bancroft, but whatever. :-)
I'm sorry the audio of the video is so sucky.
- JoshB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm Josh Bancroft, but whatever. :-)
- sunchild, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Calacanis is one of those hyper-annoying people who has a knack for being two minutes late to each trend and then claiming it for himself. His original incarnation was as the champion of 'Silicon Alley'--another idea that never took flight. Anyway, the best thing to do is ignore him and let him bottom-feed in irrelevance.
- kwalker411, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Digg me down for this opinion, but I think it's idiotic how Calacanis is the web's whipping boy of late. It seems like there are two myths that are following him around:
1. Netscape is a blatant copy of Digg. Netscape is owned by AOL and therefore corporately-funded. Therefore its product manager is evil.
2. He's an arrogant guy.
As for 1, Digg is every bit as corporately-funded as Netscape -- consider Kevin Rose's picture on the cover of Business Week as the $60 million dollar man.* As for their blatant copy of Digg, well, if they're not breaking copyrights, what's the problem? The market will decide which is the better product, why do some people have to make it a personal vendetta?
As for 2, this is a matter of personal opinion. I've heard Calacanis in Steve Gillmor's Gillmor Gang podcast for several weeks, and, while he sometimes comes off as brash, I don't find him completely intolerable. And, I've yet to hear or read any of his words where he levels a personal attack against someone else in the tech industry. I've known a lot more obnoxious people in my life, and even count some of them as friends. If he's the most irritating person you've ever heard, maybe you need to get out more.
And, as an aside, TWiT 57 just sucked all the way around. If it seemed like Calacanis dominated the conversation, then perhaps it was because everyone had to YELL in order to get heard, anyway.
* http://digg.com/tech_news/Don_t_believe_BusinessWeek_s_bubble_math- schappim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Just added you as a 'friend' it's refreshing to see someone who doesn't let their 'love' of 'digg' get in the way of thinking before they type.
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I used to think Calacanis was bad guy and sided with the majority but realized he isn't I may not like Netscape as much as Digg but I still have respect towards him (no I am not abandoning Digg) and isn't Digg a copy of del.icio..us and Slashdot/ Bury me if you want its my opinion.
- memoryleek, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2calacanis = pwned
- schappim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'm going to be dugg-down for this but, I agree with Calacanis that there is a place for paid contributors within social network. Who wouldn't want to have the choice to quit your job and 'digg' for a living?
Where Calacanis is coming into trouble is the mechanism for the promotion of a contributor from 'volunteer contributor' to 'paid contributor'. Right now the process isn't THAT transparent.
A transparent algorithm could work. For example a 'volunteer contributor' could upgrade to a 'paid contributor' by being an active contributor for a specified amount of time, have contributed a specified amount of stories that were dugg/voted on a specified amount of time. Payments to the 'paid contributor' would only be made if they contribute stories that meet a dugg / voted threshold. That way the 'paid contributor' is working for the community, and gets paid depending performance. - siglesias, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Paid/incentive contribution is where this is all headed; I'm certain.
We run into a problem, however. Nothing is stopping one of us from watching Netscape and simply copying the stories that paid contributors would have otherwise posted on digg.
Also, nothing is stopping these guys from making two accounts and posting on both sites, unless there's some kind of contract agreement that says that so many stories have to be unique to Netscape--but the contributor can't promise this. Does anybody know how this works?- DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Nothing is stopping one of us from watching Netscape and simply copying the stories that paid contributors would have otherwise posted on digg."
That's not really necessary. On Digg, the top 20 (or even top 100) users submit enough stories that get duped or are dupes originally that any void caused by a loss of a large number of top submitters gets immediately filled. That's the greatest benefit of a truly community-driven site, it depends upon the abilities of ALL contributors and not just a few (even if those few are the top submitters).
- DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Nothing is stopping one of us from watching Netscape and simply copying the stories that paid contributors would have otherwise posted on digg."
- juanbobo808, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That seemed to be less of a smackdown and more of a settled discussion. Not to say that I don't think Calacanis has any basis for hiring away devoted users, but his question was reasonable, and it was answered by Benkler in that way as well.
- pamon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Calcanis 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 - leapingfrog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Calcanis is being an ass. I don't care if he has decided to pay users $1,000/mo. That's his choice (let him waste his money), and he can do as he pleases.
HOWEVER, the fact that he keeps talking crap about Kevin Rose and slamming digg is just childish (go read his blog). I don't understand how he can talk so much crap about a website that he was so heavily inspired by, and what's up with the personal slams?
To me, Jason is essentially saying...
"Ooh, look at digg... they're so terrible for what they do, blah blah blah. They need to pay users. Ohh, the humanity!"
What does it really matter what digg does? If you're so confident in your idea, it shouldn't matter. Go off and do your own thing. Quit whining about it.
It's just one big PR stunt to me, which is definitely working in his favor. Do you have any idea how much more exposure Netscape is getting? I'm also sure he's getting plenty of good ideas from diggers on ways he should improve Netscape, just based on all the slams us tech-savvy users have about the site. In many ways, he's exploiting digg in his favor.- macewan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It does seem rather PR stunt like in nature.
- jdawg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I don't think Kevin is exploiting anyone at DIGG. Folks at DIGG are participating under their own free will... they can do what they want. However, if people want to get paid to do what they previously did for free there is nothing wrong with that either.
The top ranked users who've moved from DIGG to Netscape are doing a great job--perhaps even a better job--since making the change. This makes sense since they can all spend MORE time doing what their doing.
We saw this same thing when we started paying people to blog for Weblogs, Inc. blogs like HackADay, Engadget, and Joystiq. The important thing when you pay people for this kind of work is that you allow them the freedom they had previously.
So, the bookmarkers we are paying can bookmark whatever they like and however they like. If they want to post a story about me being an idiot they can do that--rock on. The point I've been trying to make is that a persons contribution is not more or less if they are being paid (or not).- DarknessGP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Have 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. - Fastfwd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This 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.
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5012/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanisfh8.jpg
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5879/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis2kl2.jpg - Fastfwd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My apologies for the duplicate link… here is the other photo from the after lecture debate:
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5147/bostonwikimaniabenklercalacanis3vs0.jpg
- DarknessGP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Have 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...
- calacanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Don't you mean *****?
lol...he's such a *****
http://www.calacANUS.com
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by
