Shirky (Ch. 4-6)

Chapter five in this book was awesome!! The example that Shirky uses (Wikipedia)shows us quite a few things about the ability of individuals to come together as a group (albeit an unorganized one or one that is only organized through the conglomeration of people visiting the site) and initiate a compilation of knowledgeable factoids to help create a site that relies completely upon user input.

The ability for anyone to help write the Wiki articles created a "sense" of community and enabled those without credentials to put forth information that could be valuable to the Wikipedia community and system.

The most intriguing part of the book so far revolved around the power law that was described in chapter five. Chapter four held some key points which I will discuss. Chapter six fell flat with nothing to offer but a rehashed version of the beginning of the book utilizing an example of the Catholic church and the VOTF.

Chapter four seemed to coincide with some of what Tapscott was saying in Grown up Digital. Chapter four discussed the capabilities that new technology brings to the table for groups to be able to communicate. Shirky shows how communication is "instant, global, and nearly permanent." Shirky goes on to discuss how meetings are now able to be formed instantly when utilizing the internet. The concept of fame on the internet is also noteworthy. It's interesting to note that fame is exactly similar both on the web and in real life....People of fame simply aren't able to interact with their audience in either setting.

Curiously Shirky describes web pages as a latent community. Often web communities are centers for people to communicate and share ideas and resolve issues. To consider a website to be a latent community seems to be somewhat overstating the context of what community is. A web page is nothing more than a viewpoint or selectable site in which people can scan information and direct that information to reach a determined destination or conclusion. There are many paths that a user may take when visiting a website. The path that they choose may not reflect an interest in chatting or interacting with the community while they are on the site, even if they hold a common interest there.


The profound nature of chapter five contains a substance that should be given specific academic attention. The imbalance that drives large social systems instead of damaging them makes for a reviewable read. When Shirky states, "On the contrary, most large social experiments are engines for harnessing inequality rather than limiting it" and "large social systems cannot be understood as a simple aggregation of the behavior of some nonexistent "average" user" he sets the tone for the power law distribution.

As Shirky frames the context of the power law into a visible graph, the reader is easily able to recognize the impact factor that the "few" have on many. It shows how the "few" are achieving a large amount compared to those that are "average" and contributing for the masses more so than the "average user". It was also brilliant to note that power law distributions "describe systems of interacting element rather than just collections of variable elements." I have always questioned the conditions of statistical analysis and it's skewed view of a small sample compared with that of a much larger scope. Shirky's brilliant demonstration of the power law helped me to solidify my assertions regarding the statistical analysis process by describing how the analysis can be changed by only a few people in a sample. While it's possible that some of those who read this may disagree with my assertions, the skeptic viability regarding statistical analysis's can be referenced in correlation with Shirky's published work.

It should be interesting to see what transpires in the last few chapters of this book.