Half the challenge of explaining Outfoxed to people is convincing them that its actually a more natural way of doing things than what we’ve been conditioned to accept as normal in the online world. What I want to show is that the online world has automated only our least preferred methods getting information, and it’s time someone automated the most preferred.
Imagine for a moment that your car breaks down while you’re on a business trip out of town to Springville. It’s easy enough to find a mechanic online or in the Springville yellow pages, but how will you find a good one? Since you know nothing about Springville, you’ve got three choices:
- Rely on an external trusted authority. Look for mechanics that are endorsed by the Springville Better Business Bureau, or by the American Association of Auto Mechanics.
- Rely on the wisdom of the crowd. Look for things like “Voted best Springville Mechanic 2003-2006” or “One of top ten trusted mechanics in Springville by Springville Times poll”
- Rely on your network. Call your spouse and ask if she knows anyone in Springville; turns out her old college roommate lives there. Call the roommate and get a great mechanic recommendation.
Assuming all of these options threw out some recommendations, which would you take? If you’re like me, your network trumps options 1 and 2 every time.
But how do things look in the online world? What sources can you turn to?
- Rely on an external trusted authority. Look for the “Trust-e” or “BBB” or “Verisign” seal on a page.
- Rely on the wisdom of the crowd. If it’s a book you’re buying, look at how many stars it has on Amazon. If you’re on eBay, count the stars of the seller.
- Rely on your network. Call your friends and ask if they’ve heard of this website, or if they know this seller on eBay.
The thing to notice is that the first 2 options have been completely automated by the web. External authorities were more a thing of the 1990’s Web 1.0 world, but currently Web 2.0 is positively drunk with wisdom-of-the-crowd techniques. It’s so easy! Just give every user a way to vote, and you’ve got instant crowd statistics. This is digg, this is delicious/popular, this amazon and IMDB ratings, this is YouTube stars.
But the network option sounds strange here, doesn’t it? It’s odd to bug a friend over a mere webpage, and the odds of them knowing one particular seller on eBay are staggeringling small. The problem is that this option is not yet automated. To use your network, you have to use the old slow methods of telephoning and emailing, and you have to bug a lot of people.
| Source | Real-world | Online equivalent |
| External Authority | Better Business Bureau |   |
| Wisdom of Crowd | Newspaper Surveys |   |
| Social Network | Call your friends, ask for recommendations | ??? |
Of course, social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn could step into that gap, but they seem to be content with only helping people find dates or business contacts. In my next post, I’ll talk about how the current crop of sites are missing the boat.