Rudelle Blogging

Web 2.0 big idea is that content production no more comes from centralized sources, but is taken care by collaborative contribution from users. Traditional Web sites face indeed difficult challenges to ensure an attractive content publication services. That comes from several issues:
- content production is very expensive, without speaking about its maintenance
- the Net users are increasingly demanding regarding content reliability and integrity
- real time aspect of the Internet makes the management of content production very complex
- personalization of content for each user is a true headache for all content providers
Web 2.0 collaboratives approach are supposed to solve these issues in an elegant way. By entrusting content production to end users, portals free themselves from all these constraints. Suddenly, they can combine real time, content diversity and low production costs. Combined with advanced research tools (search engines, tags), those web 2.0 platforms demonstrate unbeatable productivity compared to traditional media approaches.
However, it remains the sharp issue of content integrity. While allowing everyone to produce content, how can one make sure that this collaborative content is not biased or misleading?
There are several ways to tackle the problem. First is to screen all produced content before (or afterwards) its publication. If the volume of content remains reasonable, this can be given to a bunch of professional experts.
For big volumes, a very interesting alternative is to have this screening carried out directly by end users. The idea is that if a majority of users consider a content as poor, there is a reasonable chance that it is actually the case. Statistically, for the mast majority of cases, this democratic control appears surprisingly effective. This idea is behind services like Digg.
Still, this process tends to eliminate exotic gems. And what if you don’t think like the majority of users? Well, this is another story that requires a new generation of tools capable to perform one-to-one personalized collaborative filtering. But be patient, as those complex tools are more web 2.5 than web 2.0. ;-)