User:Lassebosch/2ndyr/thesis
Lasse van den Bosch Christensen
SKELETON
TITLE: I, for one, welcome our new Overlords
General: the thesis will revolve around a discussion thread on the sale of Google SketchUp and how the modelers handle this situation. The discussion thread is named: 'I, for one, welcome our new Trimble Overlords', Trimble being the new owners of Sketchup. This title already indicates a distinguished relationship between users and provider/owner.
I: INTRO: Community Panic
FOCUS: depict the despair/panic in the modelers-community at the time of sale (of SketchUp). Give overview of implicated software and platforms.
...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.
“I wonder that people aren't adding to their models little prophets carrying 'The End is Nigh!' placards.”.
A broken trinity: Software, Platform & Repository
For the sake of
overview a brief outline of the different implicated software and
platforms and their relations will be sketched out in the following.
II: The crowd
FOCUS: How to harness the crowd into producing a desired output? How is the crowd utilized for production? Main argument revolves around exploitation of users.
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?
“Crowdsourcing is outsourcing on steroids” - Jeff Howe (Crowdsourcing - Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business)
game-theory: design systems which generate outcome for the provider but enables 'freedom' for the individual. --> leads to next chapter
Exploitation critique
III: Users as Users
FOCUS: Dependency on software and platform. Google sells Sketchup. This chapter will extend above critique and discuss more technical aspects of rectrictions/regulations
This chapter will discuss how the software and platform is designed to make the crowd perform a desired task, by introducing certain confinements and restrictions to the capabilities of the software/platform and the users 'freedom'.
Bring in more source-material
- regulation/law/lessig:
- Latour: on speedbumps: motivations and limits for the user. confinement of 'movement'.
- ganeesh (own note)
IV: More than a user?
FOCUS: Mutual dependence? Broaden the perspective of the previous chapters.
- Enthusiasm amongst the users
- back to the title of the discussion thread
- Emergence of subscenes, and cultures some more conform than others
The platform allows not only for rigid 'upload' to Google earth but spawns a vivid scene of cultures and subcultures. The users evolves strong emotional bonds towards the platform, and the content they've produced, the provider plays a less 'dominant' role since the production is 'benefiting' the user it self.