Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
| Format | US | UK |
|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | $27.95 Buy | |
| Kindle Edition |
This is a very popular, very applied book. It basically says wikis work and wikis are important and wikis are the way of the future. If you had asked people or economists 15 years ago, could Wikipedia ever work, where editors are not paid and with its semi-open comments, most of us would have said no and we would have been totally wrong.
Wikinomics.
This is a very popular, very applied book. It basically says wikis work and wikis are important and wikis are the way of the future. Maybe it’s the least deep book on this list, but it makes the point and it makes it well.
What are wikis?
Take Wikipedia. It’s content generated by a large number of users and readers. There may be some amount of central planning and editing, but for the most part it’s decentralised content and everyone edits their bit. If you had asked people or economists 15 years ago, could Wikipedia ever work, where editors are not paid and with its semi-open comments, most of us would have said no and we would have been totally wrong.
What does mass collaboration really change? Have our lives really changed since the internet?
Well, it depends who the ‘our’ is. Google you can also think of as a form of mass collaboration – there is a kind of underlying wisdom of crowds that gives us all information. So, if you use Google or you use Wikipedia, which I do and I suspect you do too, then it has changed your life. If you met a spouse on match.com then that also has changed your life.
Next time, maybe.
Has it changed everyone’s life? To some extent it’s a generational thing and for the people growing up now, will it change most of their lives? Absolutely, yes.
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Tyler Cowen is an economist, academic and writer. Cowen is the Holbert C Harris Chair of economics and Professor at George Mason University. He is co-author of the economics blog Marginal Revolution. He contributes to the New York Times, The New Republic and The Wilson Quarterly. Cowen is also general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
