Shirky’s model of promise, tool, and bargain apply in the same way to social tools not discussed in “Here Comes Everybody”. For example, Twitter, Facebook, Craig’s List, and Lastfm all give a very simple promise; they want the user to share their stories, likes, news, etc to their friends and online peers. They are also successful because of the simplicity in using their service, just sign up and start! (Only exception is Lastfm, but since the service is desirable, installing a program or add-on isn’t too difficult for users, considering it makes organizing and getting statistics of their music collection a lot easier than going through each file or cd!)
Observing these trends in successful platforms provides a good idea and goal for our own platforms that we’re starting for this course. The Emily’s List (not yet named as such) is something I think that has a simple promise, and will be easy to use. I really do think that once we seriously start it up, it’ll be a big hit. It is modeled after two very big and successful services after all, and there is a need for the service withing the Emily Carr community. Perhaps in the near future, students who want to sell or buy will just look at the site and not on bulletin boards around the school anymore! (Though I don’t know why ECU never thought of having a “Emily Bulletin” site, instead of just a housing site..probably not enough demand for one.)
When we were still in the brainstorming stage, I wondered to myself why this couldn’t be a Emily Carr gathering space. Sometimes in school, it seems that everyone is in their own cliques either due to their major, or due to langage or nationality. I think it’d be great for there to be some kind of virtual gathering space, where all the nervousness and barriers are thrown out the window; a place where fellow students and professors can link up based on interests. But at the same time, I don’t think there is a huge need for this, though it’s definitely something to think about.
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