Absolute Radio launched its online radio last night. It runs under the name Dabbl from 7pm to 6am. We nominate the tracks that they should play, and the most popular tracks win.
Dabbl as a lens on social media
A critical unresolved issue in social media is whether crowd sourcing can replace expertise.
Are our votes better than the opinions of expert DJ’s on Radio 6, for example?
I think, as ever, the proof will be in the pudding. We will have to see, in other words.
- Do we take part?
- Are the averages of our opinions as good as the expert knowledge of DJ’s?
Dabbl : an experiment we should all copy
Whatever the outcome – Dabbl are running a good experiment that every honest industry should finance and run.
- How good is the filter made up by our average opinions?
- With this baseline, experts can ask themselves a straight forward question.
- Can we do better than the average opinion?
- And if so how exactly do we do better?
- How can we organize a service that is consistently better?
- And how can we develop our service over time so that it continues to be better than average opinion?
- In what way do our consumers think our service is better?
- And who is so convinced by our superior performance that they are willing to fund it?
Welcome to the 21st century! I reckon Dabbl is beating the path to where we all will be soon.
What would be crowd-sourcing in your industry?
With Dabbl in front of me as a clear example, I am going to be thinking about this. What would crowd-sourcing look like in psychology, management and consulting?
What would it mean to commit to a career in crowd-sourcing?
And what would it mean to commit to a career in an expert filter that competes with crowd-sourcing?
Is there a third choice? And if so, what is it?
What will you be discussing with youngsters you coach?
- Crowd-sourcing?
- Expert filters that compete with crowd sourcing?
UPDATE: I think the third choice is to do both. I think we should build platforms to crowdsource in our area and add the expertise on top. Of course some might specialize in various aspects of the enterprise. As a profession, I think crowdsourcing should be our basic foundation and there should be a seamless gradient to expert opinion.
Funnily enough the initial results of a crowd-sourced playlist have been pretty positive, and here’s what was played: http://onegoldensquare.com/2009/10/the-first-hour-on-dabbl-by-anthony-abbott/
Thanks for the link, Dan. I imagine the crowd-sourcing solution will be positive.
In the expert filter vs crowdsourcing debate, crowd sourcing will be the bottom line – do better than crowd sourcing, or give up.
I was just thinking o ‘turning in’ again. I had Dabble on for about 5 hours last night.