User:Lassebosch/2ndyr/thesis

Lasse van den Bosch Christensen

SKELETON

TITLE: I, for one, welcome our new Overlords

INTRO:COMMUNITY PANIC

FOCUS: A traumatized community; uncertain future prospects.

    ...how it affects us?

   ...I deleted all my [...] models!

...I will also delete all my models!

               ...It is Over.

...People are starting to Jump!

 ...I, for one, welcome our new [...] Overlords.

Shortly after Google officially announces the selling of it's popular 3D-software 'Google Sketchup', panic is spreading amongst it's huge 3d-modellers community. The users are split in two camps; one camp sceptical towards the unknown implications of an owner change, while the second camp tries to pour oil on the troubled waters attempting a more pragmatic, optimistic approach.

FURTHER: explain the purpose of the thesis - what will happen.

With the notion of 'crowdsourcing', and the current case as a vantage point this text seeks to cover the dymanics of user-provider relationships, looking critically at pitfalls and 'positives' of such symbiosis.

I: PRODUCTIVE USERS

FOCUS: How to harness the crowd into producing a desired output?

REWIND: google acquires Sketchup: reasons

...Already we’ve had hundreds of users create 3D content in SketchUp and place their models in Google Earth. (A free plug-in enables you to do this.) What will that virtual world look like when tens of thousands of users are doing the same?

(http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2006/03/new-home-for-last-software.html)

Crowdsourcing theory...

game-theory: design systems which generate outcome for the provider but enables 'freedom' for the individual.

II: Users as Users

FOCUS: Dependency on software and platform. Google sells Sketchup.

Bring in more source-material

regulation/law/lessig Latour: on speedbumps: motivations and limits for the user. confinement of 'movement'. III: More than a user? Fail of google earth.

FOCUS: Mutual dependence? Change perspective to second camp: we will adapt/we did not lose money. The crowd produced undesired objects?

Enthusiasm amongst the users Emergence of 'unproductive'-subscenes

[...] As long as "WE" still have control over editing and the model information we uploaded remains the same, I won't care about anything else (that I can think of right now anyway). Furthermore, as long as the models still identify the Modeler .... so that "WE" are still recognized for each of our works, I think I'll be satisfied.

People are starting to Jump, personally I've started to remove models on a graduated basis. Regards,

We're doing our best. Please be patient and again, try not to react harshly (like removing models) until all the information is published.

All I can say is "Beware of Greeks Baring Gifts" Be very careful what you ask for as one day it just might come true and unfortunately, just when you least expect it and if you think a "overlord" is welcoming just look at history.

Provider/Workers-relationship

- game-theory - crowd-control - self-constrainment

- design systems which generate outcome for the provider but enables 'freedom' for the individual.

- holmes/cybernetics - regulation/law/lessig - Latour: 'Between a car driver that slows down near a school because she has seen the ‘30 MPH’ yellow sign and a car driver that slows down because he wants to protect the suspension of his car threatened by the bump of a ‘speed trap’, is the difference big or small? Big, since the obedience of the first has gone through morality, symbols, sign posts, yellow paint, while the other has passed through the same list to which has been added a carefully designed concrete slab. But it is small since they both have obeyed something: the first driver to a rarely manifested altruism—if she had not slowed down, her heart would have been broken by the moral law; the second driver to a largely distributed selfishness—if he had not slowed down his suspension would have been broken by the concrete slab. Should we say that only the first connection is social, moral and symbolic, and that the second is objective and material? No. But, if we say that both are social, how are we going to justify the difference between moral conduct and suspension springs? They might not be social all the way through, but they certainly are collected or associated together by the very work of road designers. One cannot call oneself a social scientist and pursue only some links—the moral, legal, and symbolic ones—and stop as soon as there is some physical relation interspersed in between the others. That would render any enquiry impossible.' p.77-78

- a biased game? I, for one, welcome our new Trimble Overlords - Something more than just exploitation

- the symbiosis (also forth coming in the source material - we are the gold farmers - the 'whatever' http://www.mastersketchup.com/why-google-doesnt-need-sketchup-anymore/ http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/03/14/google.acquires.sketchup/ http://www.jonathansblog.net/google_earth_sketchup_plugin http://www.constructech.com/news/articles/article.aspx?article_id=9248&SECTION=1 http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2059388/Google-Buys-SketchUp-Google-To-Map-The-World-in-3D http://googlesystem.blogspot.nl/2006/03/google-acquires-sketchup-3d-sketching.html

http://news.cnet.com/Google-acquires-Last-Software/2100-1030_3-6049511.html

official blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2006/03/new-home-for-last-software.html