Over the weekend, I attended the >Play Conference at University of California’s Haas School of Business, and got a chance to meet some interesting folks who are conducting cool experiments in digital media. In between panels and keynotes, I snuck out for a quick puff, and ended up hanging out with Tim Westergren, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder of Pandora Music, Jared Kopf of Slide and Steve Shannon, co-founder of Akimbo. Expectedly, as always has been the case in recent days the conversation turned towards the topic of “the user generated content.” (Most of you know where I stand on this issue.) It was only going to be a matter of time before we started talking about the new Amazon Turk api.
Basically, if you have a specific task that isn’t easily automated, you ask people to do it for you, at a set price. At the moment of this posting, it looks like the few tasks available are simply Amazon looking for extremely cheap labor in writing product descriptions or picking the “best” photo for A9’s blockview system.
The whole conversation did get me thinking about the role of Amazon.com in what the kids are calling Web 2.0. If you look at what they have done over past five years, and you quickly realize that the Seattle-based online retailer is a really a harbinger of what’s to come. Alongside Google, it was the one of first to offer API to its data, opening it up for mash-ups with other web services. Now everyone is doing it.
XML and Javascript, and hyper-customization are part of business as usual at Amazon, and have been from the very start. The recommendation engines now common place on music and blog search services are part of routine offerings from Amazon. They started the whole local search craze, with maps, and street level visuals of local businesses as part of the A9 search. Now others are following suit. This is not to glorify one company, but just to use them as a predictor of what’s to follow.
They were the first ones to tap into user generated content - the reviews and user recommendations - a concept that has been widely imitated elsewhere. That was in the early days free, but it might not be the case in the future. I think their whole Mechanical Turk effort could be the first step towards a world where a compensation scheme is put in place for “user generated content.” Sure for now its only a couple of pennies, but its a start and better than other who are simply freeloading off the backs of their digital slaves… oops I meant, community. Just something to keep in mind.. eh?
Flickr photo courtesy of DreWW. Reader quiz: can you figure out the irony in the photo? If yes, leave your version in the comments section.
17 comments so far
11:44 PM PT
I don’t know but please tell me, only for the fact she is cute and the guy looks like someone from Sesame Street.
12:37 AM PT
Note the correct URL for the >play conference is http://www.playconference.org. Thanks for helping make the event a huge success Om!
1:26 AM PT
I guess that picture of Kournikova & Bezos(founder Amazon) was taken during 2003 when Amazon announced that it would sell Kournikova designed sports bra`s in Amazon.
Probably the irony could be that Amazon as you have written being “Harbinger of Web 2.0 Trends” sold sports bra`s once upon a time ;-)
Vijay
2:12 AM PT
God, how geeky am I? I recognized Bezos but not Kournikova! (Or maybe it’s just that I’m not male.)
7:45 AM PT
I love geek+babe pairings. Keep it up!
11:55 AM PT
Warning: Don’t Underestimate Amazon
While we’re all coming to terms with our Google obsession (apparently their lunches were more interesting than anything else on the web last Friday), companies like Amazon are quietly changing the world - and getting away with it! How quickly…
11:58 AM PT
[...] Om Malik has more today on the innovative online retailer: They were the first ones to tap into user generated content - the reviews and user recommendations - a concept that has been widely imitated elsewhere. That was in the early days free, but it might not be the case in the future. I think their whole Mechanical Turk effort could be the first step towards a world where a compensation scheme is put in place for “user generated content.� Sure for now its only a couple of pennies, but its a start and better than other who are simply freeloading off the backs of their digital slaves… oops I meant, community. [...]
12:03 PM PT
well the geek+babe matching is nice, but i had no clue except that some ‘geek’ dude was starring at kournikova the ‘hot chick’
1:49 PM PT
Both have (had) a lot of buzz but haven’t won anything.
2:46 PM PT
Is Jeff Bezos an ALIEN? :)
6:29 PM PT
I’m male, and I also only recognized bezos.
I assumed she was from amazon’s PR department or something. doesn’t look smart enough to do much else.
9:50 PM PT
now that he can, he cant :)
8:24 AM PT
The irony is that Flickr makes money off of user contributed content, such as this photo.
5:09 AM PT
there are five hands in the photo
9:09 AM PT
Is the irony that even though Jeff Bezos is worth billions of dollars, he still couldn’t get a date with Anna K.?
9:02 AM PT
[...] Amazon.com, harbinger of Web 2.0 trends. [...]
4:36 PM PT
[...] Tuesday, October 2, 2007 at 4:06 PM PT | No comments Amazon (AMZN), I have often pointed out, is a harbinger of technology trends that eventually gain mainstream acceptance. Contextual matching of information and [...]
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