Trovo Wikipedia un esempio straordinario di quello che la conoscenza collettiva, catalizzata dalla rete, è capace di mettere insieme grazie al contributo di anonimi volontari sparsi ovunque nelle varie parti del mondo.

Trovo che le milioni di voci presenti nella più famosa enciclopedia online, che racchiudono una parte del sapere universale, siano per certi versi un bene comune che vada preservato. Trovo però Wikipedia il peggiore esempio di come la pretesa e l’enfasi di accentrare la conoscenza umana in un unico luogo, dando voce indistintamente a chiunque, rappresentino nient’altro che una vana illusione.

Il modello dei contenuti creati dal basso, alla base della fortuna dell’enciclopedia, ha un punto debole critico che riguarda l’accuratezza e l’affidabilità di tutto quello che viene pubblicato sul sito. Nonostante lo sforzo dei moderatori, Wikipedia è piena zeppa di imprecisioni e inesattezze. Il guaio è che, il più delle volte, gli utenti che consultano le sue pagine non lo sanno e sono portati a prende per buono voci dal contenuto discutibile e inesatto.

In questa fabbrica della conoscenza, i moderatori esercitano un potere immenso. Ricoprono il ruolo degli sceriffi della conoscenza universale. Filtrano i contenuti e stabiliscono, sulla base di linee guida, ciò che può essere pubblicato e ciò che invece non può esserlo. Ma chi tra loro ha un’adeguata preparazione per valutare nel merito l’esattezza di uno specifico argomento? E qual è l’effettivo criterio di affidabilità oggettivo che viene utilizzato nel certificare una certa voce come accurata?

È per questa mancanza di affidabilità che Wikipedia, nonostante l’enorme successo raggiunto, non potrà mai rappresentare un vero compendio della conoscenza umana ma, tutt’al più, nient’altro che un effimero surrogato del sapere universale.

Trovo Wikipedia un esempio straordinario di quello che la conoscenza collettiva, catalizzata dalla rete, è capace di mettere insieme grazie al contributo di anonimi volontari sparsi ovunque nelle varie parti del mondo.

Trovo che le milioni di voci presenti nella più famosa enciclopedia online, che racchiudono una parte del sapere universale, siano per certi versi un bene comune che vada preservato. Trovo però Wikipedia il peggiore esempio di come la pretesa e l’enfasi di accentrare la conoscenza umana in un unico luogo, dando voce indistintamente a chiunque, rappresentino nient’altro che una vana illusione.

Il modello dei contenuti creati dal basso, alla base della fortuna dell’enciclopedia, ha un punto debole critico che riguarda l’accuratezza e l’affidabilità di tutto quello che viene pubblicato sul sito. Nonostante lo sforzo dei moderatori, Wikipedia è piena zeppa di imprecisioni e inesattezze. Il guaio è che, il più delle volte, gli utenti che consultano le sue pagine non lo sanno e sono portati a prende per buono voci dal contenuto discutibile e inesatto.

In questa fabbrica della conoscenza, i moderatori esercitano un potere immenso. Ricoprono il ruolo degli sceriffi della conoscenza universale. Filtrano i contenuti e stabiliscono, sulla base di linee guida, ciò che può essere pubblicato e ciò che invece non può esserlo. Ma chi tra loro ha un’adeguata preparazione per valutare nel merito l’esattezza di uno specifico argomento? E qual è l’effettivo criterio di affidabilità oggettivo che viene utilizzato nel certificare una certa voce come accurata?

È per questa mancanza di affidabilità che Wikipedia, nonostante l’enorme successo raggiunto, non potrà mai rappresentare un vero compendio della conoscenza umana ma, tutt’al più, nient’altro che un effimero surrogato del sapere universale.

More here:
/a>

I think Wikipedia is an extraordinary example of what the collective knowledge, catalyzed by the Web, can realize with the help of anonymous volunteers scattered through out various parts of the world.

I think the millions of entries in the most popular online encyclopedia, which enclose a part of universal knowledge, are to some extents a common good which should be preserved. However, I think Wikipedia is the worst example of how the ambition to centralize human knowledge in one place, by giving voice to everyone without distinction, represents nothing more than a vain illusion.

The user generated content model, which is at the base of encyclopedia’s success, has a critical weak point that concerns the accuracy and reliability of all that is published on the site. Despite the efforts of moderators, Wikipedia is full of incorrect or inaccurate entries and often, people who consult its pages ignore this problem and assume to be true their content. In this “factory of knowledge”, moderators exert an immense power by performing the role of the “sheriffs” of universal knowledge. They filter submitted content and decide what can be published and what can’t. The question is, who among them has the adequate background to assess the merits of a specific topic? And which is the objective criterion used for evaluating the accuracy of entries?

It’s for this lack of accuracy that, in spite of the enormous success achieved, Wikipedia will never be a true compendium of human knowledge but, at most, nothing but a ephemeral surrogate for the universal knowledge.

I think Wikipedia is an extraordinary example of what the collective knowledge, catalyzed by the Web, can realize with the help of anonymous volunteers scattered through out various parts of the world.

I think the millions of entries in the most popular online encyclopedia, which enclose a part of universal knowledge, are to some extents a common good which should be preserved. However, I think Wikipedia is the worst example of how the ambition to centralize human knowledge in one place, by giving voice to everyone without distinction, represents nothing more than a vain illusion.

The user generated content model, which is at the base of encyclopedia’s success, has a critical weak point that concerns the accuracy and reliability of all that is published on the site. Despite the efforts of moderators, Wikipedia is full of incorrect or inaccurate entries and often, people who consult its pages ignore this problem and assume to be true their content. In this “factory of knowledge”, moderators exert an immense power by performing the role of the “sheriffs” of universal knowledge. They filter submitted content and decide what can be published and what can’t. The question is, who among them has the adequate background to assess the merits of a specific topic? And which is the objective criterion used for evaluating the accuracy of entries?

It’s for this lack of accuracy that, in spite of the enormous success achieved, Wikipedia will never be a true compendium of human knowledge but, at most, nothing but a ephemeral surrogate for the universal knowledge.

Follow this link:
/a>

Fa un certo effetto rivedere, a distanza di tempo, la faccia sorridente di Kevin Rose sulla copertina di BusinessWeek, datata agosto 2006, su cui spicca il titolo “Come questo ragazzo ha fatto $60 milioni in 18 mesi”.

Risale al periodo d’oro di Digg, quando il sito fondato da Kevin Rose spopolava e macinava utili grazie all’enorme successo di cui godeva. Sono passati d’allora poco più di quattro anni durante i quali Digg ha perso gran parte del suo appeal e una fetta consistente di utenti. L’emorragia di visite è peggiorata in quest’ultima parte dell’anno confermando un trend negativo preoccupante. Ad aprile 2010, un articolo del Guardian riportava che il sito fondato da Kevin Rose aveva perso in un mese oltre il 35% del traffico (tornando ai livelli di giugno 2008) e tagliato il 10% del suo staff. Un ulteriore ridimensionamento dell’organico del 37% era stato annunciato a ottobre su TechCrunch, sintomo di un evidente peggioramento della salute del popolare sito di condivisione delle news. Il rilascio della nuova versione del sito ha contribuito a seppellire i timidi entusiasmi di chi sperava ancora in un miracolo. Il risultato del restyling (non solo grafico ma anche in termini di funzionalità) è stato disastroso e ha scatenando numerose critiche e polemiche che non hanno di certo giovato all’immagine già abbastanza appannata del sito.

Ma perché Digg oggi non funziona più e attrae sempre meno utenti rispetto a qualche tempo fa? Al di là di ogni possibile speculazione su quella che è stata la gestione del sito negli ultimi anni, se per curiosità date un’occhiata alla pagina che spiega cos’è Digg trovate questa breve frase: “Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web”. E il problema di fondo è proprio tutto lì, in quell’attività di scoprire e condividere i contenuti che gli utenti hanno delegato prevalentemente a Twitter e Facebook il cui utilizzo è ormai ben più radicato nella trasposizione digitale della vita di ognuno di noi.

Digg è qualcosa che percepiamo meno immediato rispetto a Twitter e meno personale e intimo rispetto a Facebook e proprio questo sentimento è ciò che ci porta a ritenere il suo utilizzo meno necessario e superfluo. Forse la parabola discendente di Digg non è ancora arrivata a un punto di non ritorno ma, probabilmente, il futuro che attende il sito ha tutto il sapore amaro della delusione.

Fa un certo effetto rivedere, a distanza di tempo, la faccia sorridente di Kevin Rose sulla copertina di BusinessWeek, datata agosto 2006, su cui spicca il titolo “Come questo ragazzo ha fatto $60 milioni in 18 mesi”.

Risale al periodo d’oro di Digg, quando il sito fondato da Kevin Rose spopolava e macinava utili grazie all’enorme successo di cui godeva. Sono passati d’allora poco più di quattro anni durante i quali Digg ha perso gran parte del suo appeal e una fetta consistente di utenti. L’emorragia di visite è peggiorata in quest’ultima parte dell’anno confermando un trend negativo preoccupante. Ad aprile 2010, un articolo del Guardian riportava che il sito fondato da Kevin Rose aveva perso in un mese oltre il 35% del traffico (tornando ai livelli di giugno 2008) e tagliato il 10% del suo staff. Un ulteriore ridimensionamento dell’organico del 37% era stato annunciato a ottobre su TechCrunch, sintomo di un evidente peggioramento della salute del popolare sito di condivisione delle news. Il rilascio della nuova versione del sito ha contribuito a seppellire i timidi entusiasmi di chi sperava ancora in un miracolo. Il risultato del restyling (non solo grafico ma anche in termini di funzionalità) è stato disastroso e ha scatenando numerose critiche e polemiche che non hanno di certo giovato all’immagine già abbastanza appannata del sito.

Ma perché Digg oggi non funziona più e attrae sempre meno utenti rispetto a qualche tempo fa? Al di là di ogni possibile speculazione su quella che è stata la gestione del sito negli ultimi anni, se per curiosità date un’occhiata alla pagina che spiega cos’è Digg trovate questa breve frase: “Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web”. E il problema di fondo è proprio tutto lì, in quell’attività di scoprire e condividere i contenuti che gli utenti hanno delegato prevalentemente a Twitter e Facebook il cui utilizzo è ormai ben più radicato nella trasposizione digitale della vita di ognuno di noi.

Digg è qualcosa che percepiamo meno immediato rispetto a Twitter e meno personale e intimo rispetto a Facebook e proprio questo sentimento è ciò che ci porta a ritenere il suo utilizzo meno necessario e superfluo. Forse la parabola discendente di Digg non è ancora arrivata a un punto di non ritorno ma, probabilmente, il futuro che attende il sito ha tutto il sapore amaro della delusione.

Link:
/a>

It’s strange to see again, after so long, Kevin Rose’s smiling face on BusinessWeek’s cover dated August 2006 on which stands the title “How this kid made $ 60 million in 18 months.”

It dates back to the golden age of Digg, when the site founded by Kevin Rose in December 2004 drew the crowds because of the success achieved during that period of time. Just over four years have passed since that moment during which Digg has lost much of its appeal and a large chunk of users. The bleeding of visits has worsened in the last part of the year confirming an alarming negative trend. In April 2010, a Guardian article reported that the site founded by Kevin Rose had lost, just in a month, more than 35% of traffic (returning to the levels of June 2008) and cut 10% of its staff. A further downsizing of staff by 37% was announced in October on TechCrunch as a clear sign of deteriorating health of the popular news sharing site.

The release of the new Digg version has helped bury the timid enthusiasm of those who hoped for a miracle. The result of the redesign (not only in terms of graphics but also of features) has been disastrous and has sparked numerous controversies and criticisms that have not benefited the image of the site.

The question is, why today Digg is attracting fewer users than some time ago? Beyond any possible speculation about how the site has been managed in recent years, if you look at the page that explains what is Digg, you find this short sentence “Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web”. This sentence in its simplicity contains the deep problem of Digg. Many users have delegated Twitter and Facebook to discover and share contents across the web, two services whose usage is now well established in the “digital transposition” of the life of everyone.

Digg is something that users perceive less immediate than Twitter and less personal and intimate than Facebook. Just that feeling is what leads them to believe its use superfluous. Perhaps the downward turn of Digg has not yet reached the point of no return but, probably, the future that awaits the site has all the bitter taste of disappointment.

It’s strange to see again, after so long, Kevin Rose’s smiling face on BusinessWeek’s cover dated August 2006 on which stands the title “How this kid made $ 60 million in 18 months.”

It dates back to the golden age of Digg, when the site founded by Kevin Rose in December 2004 drew the crowds because of the success achieved during that period of time. Just over four years have passed since that moment during which Digg has lost much of its appeal and a large chunk of users. The bleeding of visits has worsened in the last part of the year confirming an alarming negative trend. In April 2010, a Guardian article reported that the site founded by Kevin Rose had lost, just in a month, more than 35% of traffic (returning to the levels of June 2008) and cut 10% of its staff. A further downsizing of staff by 37% was announced in October on TechCrunch as a clear sign of deteriorating health of the popular news sharing site.

The release of the new Digg version has helped bury the timid enthusiasm of those who hoped for a miracle. The result of the redesign (not only in terms of graphics but also of features) has been disastrous and has sparked numerous controversies and criticisms that have not benefited the image of the site.

The question is, why today Digg is attracting fewer users than some time ago? Beyond any possible speculation about how the site has been managed in recent years, if you look at the page that explains what is Digg, you find this short sentence “Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web”. This sentence in its simplicity contains the deep problem of Digg. Many users have delegated Twitter and Facebook to discover and share contents across the web, two services whose usage is now well established in the “digital transposition” of the life of everyone.

Digg is something that users perceive less immediate than Twitter and less personal and intimate than Facebook. Just that feeling is what leads them to believe its use superfluous. Perhaps the downward turn of Digg has not yet reached the point of no return but, probably, the future that awaits the site has all the bitter taste of disappointment.

Follow this link:
/a>

First of all, please wish TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog a Happy 7th Birthday!

It was /a> that I started this blog as an experiment to document industry news and develop my writing skills. With the help of many different people, it’s turned into quite a bit more than that.

THANK YOU for reading, sharing and contributing your insights. They are all very much appreciated and help fuel the continued publishing of this blog after thousands of posts:  2,496 to be exact and I’ve had the privilege of writing 2,075 of them.

The year 2010 provided to be one of focus on Social Media and Content Marketing topics over our past emphasis on SEO and Online PR. All are great topics in the online marketing mix, but as you’ll see below, readers are eating up social media content as fast as they can get it.

Here are the top 10 posts from Online Marketing Blog published in 2010:
(according to visits)

1. /a> – Facebook marketing is hot in 2010 and with close to 600 million users, it’s only going to get hotter in 2011. These basic tips are a great starting point for companies that want to increase their reach and customer engagement on Facebook.
2. /a> – With 1,495 retweets and nearly 200 Facebook shares, this post about social media was very popular. Due to the meteoric rise of publishing and sharing tools, the social web can be overwhelming for marketers. These tools are part of growing category of software that help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals manage their brands’ social participation.
3. /a> - You can’t scale social media marketing or search engine optimization without tools and the intersection of social media and SEO offers a tremendous competitive advantage. These tools offer a range of benefits for creating and measuring search friendly social media content.
4. /a> - Social media isn’t just for consumer products and services. Content marketing and relationship building are key to longer sales cycles common to B2B marketing and social media offers an exceptional platform for engaging prospects with content and social media. These examples show how successful B2B companies are implementing social media into their marketing mix.
5. /a> - Let’s hear it for the women of social media. A response to a listing of (mostly men) top social media pundits on ClickZ by Erik Qualmann, this post lists 25 women who are rocking the social media world.
6. /a> - In line with our editorial plan that offers a matrix of tactical marketing tips intersecting with vertical markets, this post resonated with marketers part of the huge Healthcare industry looking for examples of social media in action.
7. /a> – Tapping into the amazing network I’ve been fortunate to develop of the past 10 years or so, this list of social media strategy advice comes from a range of industry luminaries. It also offers contrasting views between Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan on social media strategy vs. tactics.
8. /a> - This was another post about social media that did well socially, with 1,159 Retweets and 300 Facebook shares.  While numbered tips posts do quite well, personal observation posts like this one seem to connect with other marketers (and consultants) experiencing the stumbling of many companies and their efforts to make sense of the social web.
9. /a> - LinkedIn is on the rise with over 90 million users and every Fortune 500 company represented. A plethora of new features and integration with other social channels has made LinkedIn a place worth spending time on outside of recruiting.
10. /a> - Sometimes the best blog posts come from answering people’s questions via email. That’s the genesis of this post on practical and first hand advice on building a successful Twitter marketing strategy.

Overall, the most visited pages for this blog included our famous /a> and the best list of /a>.  Based on social signals, search referring traffic and other KPIs, numbered lists continue to dominate the format that gains greatest exposure for content we post here. I’ll continue to provide those kinds of insights in 2011 and also welcome your feedback

If you’re a regular reader, what were some of your favorite posts over the past year? What would you like to see more of? Would you like to see more posts form other TopRank Marketing staff? Industry news? Videos (besides my travel videos of course), interviews, conference liveblogging?

After 7 years of blogging the focus of this agency blog is still to document what TopRank Marketing considers as topics worth discussing with an emphasis on Content, Search and Social.  Advertising, PR and Email will also enter the mix a bit more as well as some new faces from the TopRank Marketing team.  On top of that, your feedback is especially welcome.

Thanks again for reading and Happy New Year to you!

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In recent years, URL shortening services have gained a considerable popularity thanks to the large success of Twitter. These services (such as ThinyURL, Bit.ly, WP.me) provide Twitter friendly short aliases for redirection of long URLs.
A valuable use of these services is their integration with the pages of your WordPress blog so as to give to visitors short URL addresses ready to be shared on the popular microblogging service.
I already illustrated a /a> to integrate Bit.ly with your WordPress theme and return a Bitly short URL. To do that, you need a Bitly account and an /a>. Than, you have to modify your WordPress theme and add this function into the function.php file:

Then substitue YOURLOGIN with your user name and YOURAPIKEY with your API key you can find here if you are already logged into Bitly. In single.php add this code into the loop to return the shortened URL of the permalink of the current post:

A useful way to use this code snippet is to integrate it with Twitter’s status update link:

Another interesting way to integrate an URL shortening service on your blog is using TinyURL. TinyURL doesn’t require an account and, unlike Bitly, doesn’t have a rate limit in the API calls. David Walsh wrote an /a> that illustrates how to use the TinyUrl API with PHP. If you want to integrate it with your WordPress theme add this function into function.php:

Open single.php and add the following code into the loop to return the shortened URL of the permalink of the current post:

If you want to integrate it with a Twitter’s status update link use this code:

If you want to use a WordPress plugin without coding, I suggest you to take a look at /a>. This plugin allows you to generate shortlinks for post/pages using URL Shortener Services such as Bit.ly, Su.pr, ping.fm, Digg and many others, it’s simple to implement and it has many interesting features you can customize as you prefer. Another good choice is /a>. This plugin creates a short URL from the blog post permalink and stores it in the database. It supports lin.io, unrelo.com, bit.ly, u.nu and tinyurl.com.
Before closing a mention to /a> a WordPress plugin that allows you to use your blog as your own URL shorterning service by implementing the Short URL Auto-Discovery specification. Your short URLs will be in the form of http://domain/-code.

In recent years, URL shortening services have gained a considerable popularity thanks to the large success of Twitter. These services (such as ThinyURL, Bit.ly, WP.me) provide Twitter friendly short aliases for redirection of long URLs.
A valuable use of these services is their integration with the pages of your WordPress blog so as to give to visitors short URL addresses ready to be shared on the popular microblogging service.
I already illustrated a /a> to integrate Bit.ly with your WordPress theme and return a Bitly short URL. To do that, you need a Bitly account and an /a>. Than, you have to modify your WordPress theme and add this function into the function.php file:

Then substitue YOURLOGIN with your user name and YOURAPIKEY with your API key you can find here if you are already logged into Bitly. In single.php add this code into the loop to return the shortened URL of the permalink of the current post:

A useful way to use this code snippet is to integrate it with Twitter’s status update link:

Another interesting way to integrate an URL shortening service on your blog is using TinyURL. TinyURL doesn’t require an account and, unlike Bitly, doesn’t have a rate limit in the API calls. David Walsh wrote an /a> that illustrates how to use the TinyUrl API with PHP. If you want to integrate it with your WordPress theme add this function into function.php:

Open single.php and add the following code into the loop to return the shortened URL of the permalink of the current post:

If you want to integrate it with a Twitter’s status update link use this code:

If you want to use a WordPress plugin without coding, I suggest you to take a look at /a>. This plugin allows you to generate shortlinks for post/pages using URL Shortener Services such as Bit.ly, Su.pr, ping.fm, Digg and many others, it’s simple to implement and it has many interesting features you can customize as you prefer. Another good choice is /a>. This plugin creates a short URL from the blog post permalink and stores it in the database. It supports lin.io, unrelo.com, bit.ly, u.nu and tinyurl.com.
Before closing a mention to /a> a WordPress plugin that allows you to use your blog as your own URL shorterning service by implementing the Short URL Auto-Discovery specification. Your short URLs will be in the form of http://domain/-code.

Read more from the original source:
/a>