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| Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything | 
 enlarge | Authors: Don Tapscott, Anthony . Williams
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Category: Book
Buy Used: $22.50
Used (2) from $22.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  93 reviews
Format: Import
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 408
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 1843546361
EAN: 9781843546368
ASIN: 1843546361
Publication Date: July 12, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Dot com hype redux July 17, 2007
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
Tapscott produced a mediocre formula book of stealing big ideas from other people and then dumbs them down and runs them through the hype-o-meter to produce meaningless pap.
There are several basic messages of the book better expained by the referenced books:
1. The Digital age Changes Everything See: Reviolutionary Wealth Alvin & Heidi Toffler
2. The Digital age changes the way we live and work: See: Release 2.0 Esther Dyson
3. There is a social life of information See: The Social Life of Inforamtion John Seely-Brown)
4. Everything is linked see: Linked byAlbert-Laszlo Barabasi
All the rest in the book is buzzword bingo and hyping technology which is here today and highly evolved tommorow. The book is devoid of meaningful reference and isz built largely off of unsophisticated self published sources.
Skim it in a brink and mortar store or at you library and you will have more time to read the more solid references listed above.
 Collabonomics February 9, 2007
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
Don Tapscott has done it again. He has beheld what we see happening all around us on the Internet and made sense of it from a business perspective. And he's again displayed his rare ability to distill a huge concept into a single word. (Buzzwords are with us for a reason: we need them as shorthand for new and complex ideas.)
Wikinomics is mainly about innovation and how web-based collaboration is driving it. Also, the book speaks to organizational dynamics and how the web is eating away at traditional hierarchies. This book should be a warning to companies that still think instant messaging is a nuisance and a threat to security. That's wrongheaded, according to the authors.
As the founder of the world's first eBay for knowledge, Knexa, I have a keen interest in what Tapscott calls "idea agoras," web-based exchange systems that facilitate the transfer of knowledge and/or intellectual property for financial consideration. Although such business models have been around for several years (Knexa launched in 1999), the space is still in its infancy and will continue to evolve.
Also, as an executive in the mining industry, I was pleased to see the example of Gold Corp used as an example of cutting edge innovation through web-based collaboration. Mining is typically seen as a knowledge economy Neanderthal, the quintessential "old economy" industry. But people in the business know better. It's extremely knowledge centric.
But when it comes to sharing knowledge to gain competitive advantage, the mining business is no different than the rest of the business world, where most would rather take their IP to the grave than "collaborate" with a competitor. But as Wikinomics points out, some companies are realizing that there's opportunity where others fear to tread.
Brief story. A few years ago when Knexa had offices in Vancouver's trendy Yaletown area, we shared about 10,000 square feet of cool brick and beam space with a bunch of other startups. One little company down the hall was named Ludicorp. They were not into suits and always seemed to work into the wee hours. One day I asked one of the fellows what they do. He said they had a web site called Flickr. They were shortly thereafter bought by Yahoo and are one of the sites reviewed in Wikinomics.
David H Brett, CEO, Knexa, CEO, Cusac Gold Mines Ltd.
 full of generalizations, and odes to stealing bits May 11, 2007
16 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is painful reading; full of the same generalizations over and over again, with few concrete examples. This is the classic kind of book written by somebody who makes a living writing business books, and has to crank them out on a regular basis - just so much filler. And then he loves the fact that young kids have figured out how to steal music and other content - is that really such a great thing?
Solid overview of collaboration platforms January 7, 2007
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
The subtitle of the book is "How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything", and the authors do a great job covering all the latest tools and topics (e.g., wikis, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) As they see it, the four keys to success are openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. They spend the almost 300 pages of this book showing how each of these keys apply to all the various tools and platforms for collaboration.
The book is loaded with case studies, but not in the traditional (boring) sense. Rather, the authors do a nice job of weaving in examples of and interviews with collaboration pioneers from a variety of organizations. Proctor & Gamble is a popular one throughout the book. I didn't realize how much P&G does on this front till I read about it here; P&G obviously buys into the authors' suggestion that, "increasingly, you should assume the best people reside outside your corporate walls."
Here are a few other interesting excerpts I flagged while reading Wikinomics:
*** ...any serious news organization today should also allow its community of readers to join in the editorial conversation. The fact that all major media properties don't already offer a parallel front page edited by readers is troubling.
*** While the leaders fight over their "one size fits all" search engines, Alexa's Web services may lead to a customized suite of search solutions that have been developed for particular communities of interest.
*** Becoming a pervasive and continuously innovative presence means becoming a magnet for innovation that attracts lots of partners...
*** Our work may still largely define who we are, but employers no longer will.
They also devote coverage to how most publishers suffer from the good old Innovator's Dilemma, which is, of course, near and dear to my heart. One of my goals is to help ensure this statement by the authors doesn't come true: "...new business models for open content will not come from traditional media establishments, but from companies such as Google, Yahoo and YouTube."
Finally, in the middle of chapter 7, "Platforms for Participation", the authors ask a very important question: "Should open-platform orchestrators compensate the people and organizations that add value to their platforms?" Obviously many of these platforms are existing just fine without providing contributor compensation. But, I firmly believe compensation models will have to be developed before collaboration will appeal to the masses. (And yes, I realize many of these platforms already have large contributor bases today, but they still represent a very small percentage of the overall online population.)
Good, but should be 100 pages, not 320. May 11, 2007
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Now really, the subject for this book is excellent. It has sound advice and good message. But geez, there is so much repetition and meaningless blabber and buzzwords that you just go crazy, especially if you read the audiobook version like I did.
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