ZenPundit
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
 
WIRED FOR TRANSPARENCY



The influential tech culture magazine WIRED, which I must admit is only an occasional read for me, is proceeding with the experiment in "radical transparency" proposed by Chris Anderson of The Long Tail , who is also one of the editors. The feature writer on this story, Clive Thompson, is soliciting feedback at his blog Collision Detection, where I bestirred myself to leave a brief comment.

Upon reflection, I think there are other things that may be said about this experiment and the paradigm Thompson is espousing, which is:

Secrecy is dead

Tap the Hivemind

Reputation is everything

Looking at this the way an economist might, how these variables will play out in the real world may depend on the operation of " the attention economy".

WIRED may become wide-open but unless they ran a story that related to one of my core research interests, I can't see burrowing into the nitty gritty of their editorial process. Otherwise, I just don't care that much. The overall number of online, regularly " deep diving" readers of a radically transparent WIRED is likely to be quite small. At least compared to their overall readership. But their loyalty and sense of community, if there is a high level of interactivity with each other and the staff, is likely to be strong.

So "radical transparency" make make possible a higher level of intensity of engagement among WIRED readers that did not exist beforehand. A better quality of attention, which would seem to represent, from the perspective of WIRED, an economically valuable demographic for advertising purposes and a well-informed sounding board for magazine ideas.

Thoughts?
 
Comments:
Mark,

I think you are missing the big picture.

An open source information framework (radical transparency) is not just important to those who choose to review the entire process. Over time this information distribution framework will set the standard by which legitimate output (information) is judged. If the output from the pipe does not adhere to an open source methodology then its purity will automatically be in question.

The ultimate result will be that most people will find their way to those pipes that have been certified as transparent. For the few who wish to believe that the delivery system is irrelevant to the output I am sure that the Rupert Murdoch's of the world will be there to supply them their unquestioned nourishment - that assumes of course that those few amount to a decent profit.
 
Hi Jim

"Over time this information distribution framework will set the standard by which legitimate output (information) is judged"

This is an excellent point and one that I did indeed miss by focusing too narrowly. Well done !

"The ultimate result will be that most people will find their way to those pipes that have been certified as transparent."

I agree. Though I think this may also trend into non-information industries that will want to prove to customers, suppliers, stockholders that their decision-making and production process is "transparent", even if that will be less so than with a periodical.

Something that will affect investment decisions.

Excellent comment. Useful.
 
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