5 ms·

Your company fails when you stop innovating and start copying, and enters a death spiral when smart employees (and investors) leave, because they know that no a

Your company fails when you stop innovating and start copying, and enters a death spiral when smart employees (and investors) leave, because they know that no amount of fancy demos and vaporware will make up for the declining quality of the core product. Eventually the neglected core becomes weaker and weaker to the point where it fails spectacularly. We are saw this with MySpace, are seeing it with Wikipedia, Google Search, and if Facebook continues on the same path, it won't be long before they suffer the same fate.

rdruxn 9y ago
How is Wikipedia getting weaker?
- sparkzilla 9y ago
  Number of editors is in decline. Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years. Policies are moribund. No innovation. No leadership. It's just a matter of time.
  - digitalzombie 9y ago
    > Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years Craiglist presentation hasn't changed either. I don't think this point is relevant if the UI is good enough or have been this way for so long that people are used to it. Changing it would be weird. > No innovation. You want to innovate an online encyclopedia? How exactly do you do that? And without sacrificing integrity? > It's just a matter of time. What is this time to event thing that you speak of?
    - sparkzilla 9y ago
      >Craiglist presentation hasn't changed either. I don't think this point is relevant if the UI is good enough or have been this way for so long that people are used to it. Changing it would be weird. There are many problems with Wikipedia's presentation of information [1], but the point is that, even if Wikipedia's UI was the best there was, new media inevitably come along that change the way customers want to access their information. For example, you may think it's 'weird' to change Wikipedia's text-heavy UI, but kids brought up on Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram might want a more visual interface for their encyclopedia. >You want to innovate an online encyclopedia? How exactly do you do that? And without sacrificing integrity? Beyond UI, Wikipedia has many problems in its data structure, policies, and integrity, by which I mean the veracity of its information, and its endemic bias. Rather than discuss them here, please read my blog post: Wikipedia's 13 deadly Sins. [1] >What is this time to event thing that you speak of? The rapid collapse of an incumbent site due to its monopoly position and consequent lack of innovation i.e. the point of the original post. Your response appears to confirm that the lack of imagination that goes hand-in-hand with monopoly products is not just confined to their creators. Their customers want the monopoly, until they don't. Wikipedia, Craigslist, Google and Facebook are not unassailable. Everything dies. [1] http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/ http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/
      - r00fus 9y ago
        Tell me who is Wikipedia's competitor?
        vkou 9y ago
        Who was MySpace's competitor in 2005?
        jdmichal 9y ago
        The answer is, of course, Facebook, which was launched in February 2004. But no one knew that until a couple years later, when it opened its doors to the general populace. The true competitor to Wikipedia will probably look nothing like Wikipedia. It will likely appear "suddenly" to those not in the know. And Wikipedia probably won't die die... After all, Myspace still exists. It will just be a place no one goes to anymore, or maybe as a last resort when other options are fruitless.
        bigbugbag 9y ago
        What do you mean ? If you're asking for which one will eventually replace wikipedia only time will tell. If you're asking if wikipedia has competitors, yes quite a numbers of them even from before wikipedia started.
        jdmichal 9y ago
        And there are also many specialized competitors, while Wikipedia is very generic. For instance, I can't think of anyone I know that would go to Wikipedia first to find out about a movie. First choices would be Youtube for trailers or IMDB for detailed data.
  - qmalzp 9y ago
    The day Wikipedia changes its presentation is the day I start worrying about Wikipedia.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      They did a few times, and even reverted a few due to user upcoming revolt.
      - sparkzilla 9y ago
        Confirming my point above that the users lock in to the lack of innovation.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
    > Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years. I think you mean 7. They changed their default theme to Vector in 2010, replacing Monobook, which had itself replaced Standard/Classic in 2004. Moreover, Wikipedia has also acquired a mobile theme, which is very “modern”.
    - dTal 9y ago
      To be fair 'Vector' and 'Monobook' are nearly indistinguishable: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Dantman-Skin-monobook.png https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Dantman-Skin-monobook.pn...
      - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
        They look similar, sure, but Vector is more refined. It uses larger fonts and pads things out a bit, and rearranges items to improve usability. To compare directly: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin...
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    You're badly misunderstanding where Wikipedia's current challenges lie. The encyclopedia itself is the largest and most comprehensive ever created. Its accuracy rivals or exceeds any general-interest encyclopedia, and most special-purpose ones. Wikipedia has gotten tremendous mileage out of ordinary contributions, but I suspect is starting to test the limits of what a crowdsourced project can accomplish. Moreover, it's specifically the question of who finds it appealing to volunteer, or in cases, "volunteer", their efforts to the project, which is becoming a problem. It's been a problem for some time, but it's becoming more of one. Several major areas are already political minefields, not only among actual and qualified experts within the fields, but of those who seek to control models and understanding for other reasons. Climate change is certainly one of these. There are more mundane issues as well. Wikipedia is quite good on any events or facts based after roughly 2004, but coverage can become quite thin for earlier periods, particularly those which aren't popular. There's the problem of sourcing material, especially as Wikipedia itself is online, but many of its primary sources aren't, at least not cheaply and legally. The upshot: the problems Wikipedia faces today are not those that it faced starting out, at least not for the most part. Much of the real work and innovation is going behind the scenes. Part of that is technical, part is managing the emergent social dynamics of the project and its contributors. It would be trivial for any other competing project to match Wikipedia -- it simply has to copy the content. For it to actually exceed Wikipedia, in accuracy, as an epistemic system, it would have to improve on the process overall. That's a harder problem.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      You're badly misunderstanding what wikipedia is. It's not an encyclopedia and fails short of the definition by design and the first encyclopedia was much more comprehensive (though was at a time where there was no pokemon to artificially grow this perception). Its accuracy is both terrible and good depending on which article you read and quality is often dubious when you wander outside of english wikipedia. The problems wikipedia faced at the start was the dubious source of funding by a shady founder, the problems wikipedia faces today is the colossal amount of money they don't actually need but ask for and receive anyways and drop conspicuously in private pockets. So not much has changed basically except maybe the core of people in control behind the scenes managed to drive away newcomers and contributors to keep the control and power they have. The good thing is that the licensing issue is mostly fixed and we should be able to fork wikipedia and salvage the data (if they ever fix their data structures and resume offerings usable dumps).

rdruxn 9y ago

How is Wikipedia getting weaker?

sparkzilla 9y ago
Number of editors is in decline. Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years. Policies are moribund. No innovation. No leadership. It's just a matter of time.
- digitalzombie 9y ago
  > Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years Craiglist presentation hasn't changed either. I don't think this point is relevant if the UI is good enough or have been this way for so long that people are used to it. Changing it would be weird. > No innovation. You want to innovate an online encyclopedia? How exactly do you do that? And without sacrificing integrity? > It's just a matter of time. What is this time to event thing that you speak of?
  - sparkzilla 9y ago
    >Craiglist presentation hasn't changed either. I don't think this point is relevant if the UI is good enough or have been this way for so long that people are used to it. Changing it would be weird. There are many problems with Wikipedia's presentation of information [1], but the point is that, even if Wikipedia's UI was the best there was, new media inevitably come along that change the way customers want to access their information. For example, you may think it's 'weird' to change Wikipedia's text-heavy UI, but kids brought up on Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram might want a more visual interface for their encyclopedia. >You want to innovate an online encyclopedia? How exactly do you do that? And without sacrificing integrity? Beyond UI, Wikipedia has many problems in its data structure, policies, and integrity, by which I mean the veracity of its information, and its endemic bias. Rather than discuss them here, please read my blog post: Wikipedia's 13 deadly Sins. [1] >What is this time to event thing that you speak of? The rapid collapse of an incumbent site due to its monopoly position and consequent lack of innovation i.e. the point of the original post. Your response appears to confirm that the lack of imagination that goes hand-in-hand with monopoly products is not just confined to their creators. Their customers want the monopoly, until they don't. Wikipedia, Craigslist, Google and Facebook are not unassailable. Everything dies. [1] http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/ http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/
    - r00fus 9y ago
      Tell me who is Wikipedia's competitor?
      - vkou 9y ago
        Who was MySpace's competitor in 2005?
        jdmichal 9y ago
        The answer is, of course, Facebook, which was launched in February 2004. But no one knew that until a couple years later, when it opened its doors to the general populace. The true competitor to Wikipedia will probably look nothing like Wikipedia. It will likely appear "suddenly" to those not in the know. And Wikipedia probably won't die die... After all, Myspace still exists. It will just be a place no one goes to anymore, or maybe as a last resort when other options are fruitless.
      - bigbugbag 9y ago
        What do you mean ? If you're asking for which one will eventually replace wikipedia only time will tell. If you're asking if wikipedia has competitors, yes quite a numbers of them even from before wikipedia started.
        jdmichal 9y ago
        And there are also many specialized competitors, while Wikipedia is very generic. For instance, I can't think of anyone I know that would go to Wikipedia first to find out about a movie. First choices would be Youtube for trailers or IMDB for detailed data.
- qmalzp 9y ago
  The day Wikipedia changes its presentation is the day I start worrying about Wikipedia.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    They did a few times, and even reverted a few due to user upcoming revolt.
    - sparkzilla 9y ago
      Confirming my point above that the users lock in to the lack of innovation.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
  > Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years. I think you mean 7. They changed their default theme to Vector in 2010, replacing Monobook, which had itself replaced Standard/Classic in 2004. Moreover, Wikipedia has also acquired a mobile theme, which is very “modern”.
  - dTal 9y ago
    To be fair 'Vector' and 'Monobook' are nearly indistinguishable: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Dantman-Skin-monobook.png https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Dantman-Skin-monobook.pn...
    - TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
      They look similar, sure, but Vector is more refined. It uses larger fonts and pads things out a bit, and rearranges items to improve usability. To compare directly: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin... and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin...
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  You're badly misunderstanding where Wikipedia's current challenges lie. The encyclopedia itself is the largest and most comprehensive ever created. Its accuracy rivals or exceeds any general-interest encyclopedia, and most special-purpose ones. Wikipedia has gotten tremendous mileage out of ordinary contributions, but I suspect is starting to test the limits of what a crowdsourced project can accomplish. Moreover, it's specifically the question of who finds it appealing to volunteer, or in cases, "volunteer", their efforts to the project, which is becoming a problem. It's been a problem for some time, but it's becoming more of one. Several major areas are already political minefields, not only among actual and qualified experts within the fields, but of those who seek to control models and understanding for other reasons. Climate change is certainly one of these. There are more mundane issues as well. Wikipedia is quite good on any events or facts based after roughly 2004, but coverage can become quite thin for earlier periods, particularly those which aren't popular. There's the problem of sourcing material, especially as Wikipedia itself is online, but many of its primary sources aren't, at least not cheaply and legally. The upshot: the problems Wikipedia faces today are not those that it faced starting out, at least not for the most part. Much of the real work and innovation is going behind the scenes. Part of that is technical, part is managing the emergent social dynamics of the project and its contributors. It would be trivial for any other competing project to match Wikipedia -- it simply has to copy the content. For it to actually exceed Wikipedia, in accuracy, as an epistemic system, it would have to improve on the process overall. That's a harder problem.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    You're badly misunderstanding what wikipedia is. It's not an encyclopedia and fails short of the definition by design and the first encyclopedia was much more comprehensive (though was at a time where there was no pokemon to artificially grow this perception). Its accuracy is both terrible and good depending on which article you read and quality is often dubious when you wander outside of english wikipedia. The problems wikipedia faced at the start was the dubious source of funding by a shady founder, the problems wikipedia faces today is the colossal amount of money they don't actually need but ask for and receive anyways and drop conspicuously in private pockets. So not much has changed basically except maybe the core of people in control behind the scenes managed to drive away newcomers and contributors to keep the control and power they have. The good thing is that the licensing issue is mostly fixed and we should be able to fork wikipedia and salvage the data (if they ever fix their data structures and resume offerings usable dumps).