Web 2.0's insight was: because all of these users use the same domain, you can aggregate signals to benefit all users.
- Web 2.0's insight was: because all of these users use the same domain, you can aggregate signals to benefit all users.
- You do that via anonymous aggregation to produce crowdsourced intelligence.
- For example, Google Search's ranking is largely powered by the clickstream and the querystream.
- As Tim O'Reilly has said, data is like sand.
- Not useful in small quantities, but very valuable in large quantities.
- Origins get a lot of data, distill it into a processed signal that is mostly anonymous but can add lots of value for the ecosystem.
- But the origin has all of the original data, so they will be tempted to peek and look at it in more depth.
- That incentive is too strong to ignore.
- It turns origin owners into a greedy goblin hoarding the data in their fiefdom.
- The incentive is so strong that this happens even if the owner didn't start that way.
- What if you got the crowdsourced intelligence but without any goblin hoarding data?