The Sebastian

So... I've came up with yet another idea: web experiment one.

I remember from my engineering days talking about the scientific method in several occasions, with teachers, with fellow students, friends, etc. Not so exciting for everybody... I know, I know. I want to apply it to the web, on a series of experiments. This is the first one. Each experiment shall have a little twist.

Experiment one - a simple game

A web site is built specifically for the experiment (part of it being reusable for the other experiments to come). The site allows players to sign-up (very simplified, minimal information is captured). Players get to answer two questions, and then ask one question of their own, to be answered by other players.

Visitors can rate answers to questions and, by doing so, they are indirectly rating the user answering the question as well. The questions might be grouped by categories / topics. Users with the best 100 ratings are listed in a "game high-score fashion" (calculated based on their answers' average rating compared to others, but also taking into account the number of questions answered -including an statistical "difficulty" estimated for each of those questions they answered ?--, etc).

Questions / answers and players (top 10, most active, etc) are displayed on the main page of the site. There might be a search box too over there.

Things like simple profiles / blogs, messages, friends list, etc. could also be added.

The site also measures the web traffic, behaviour and statistics. This and other statistical data is also made public. This is (partially) the result of the experiment, which could in turn be used to develop theories and models to describe and further understand social computing and social networking. As an example, this could later be applied to develop new online marketing concepts.

As a side benefit, if the quality of the questions and answers is good (which is encouraged by the rating / populatiry concept), this information can also be valuable all by itself.

The twist:

The site also invites visitors to make a donation to a charitable foundation, as an "incentive" to keep the experiments going, and also as another factor to include as part of the experiment itself. This makes the experiment also be a philantropism effort, and also helps better understanding philantropism by itself. Questions and answers could potentially be related to the charitable foundation cause.

Last thoughts: the same platform can then be used as a "research" platform where users collaborate (with proper incentives) with each other. Another one: an online, collaborative "innovation engine", which could be used privately or publicaly, etc. One last one: an online collaborative way to solve problems (e.g.: to solve a crime). The results from the experiment can also be used to improve the platform over time by performing other similar experiments (trying to improve a small number of variables) and compating results. Over time, the platform could be optimized this way.

Any comments? Any takers?

It seems to me I've found a small pattern that most of the successful business people I've met follow, give or take 20 cents. They tend to have always a free pizza, some kind of extra value, to bring to the table. They collect various (somehow intangible) assets along the way.

Some of them collect valuable stories. The kind of stories that will give you a good lesson based on facts. Very valuable information.

Some of them collect strategies, facts, results. They remember numbers, selling and marketing strategies that worked out those numbers, etc. Pretty much like collecting results and stats for your favorite sport star.

Some of them ...

The pattern seems to be, they narrow their focus on which kind of assets they enjoy collecting, and then collect, collect and collect them along their way. In a little word, this is sometimes called experience. Collecting experience. How to concentrate on collecting the maximum and most useful experience out of each experience.

What do you think? Did I miss thie subject in my books and magazines, or is my shelf missing some good literature?

Facebook just reached this past May '07 more than 26.6M unique visits and 15.8B content pages impressions, each visitor spending an average of 3 hours on the site. Amazing. The 26.6M visitors number is comparable with Malaysia's, Uzbekistan, Peru and Venezuela's population.

This (and more data) was made public by comScore as the result of one of their studies done through their Media Matrix product. Read the press release at Yahoo Finance.

comScore is a very interesting company all by itself. Their recent IPO went pretty well too. I own some shares of the now publicly traded company, as I believe they have a good business model, a great potential growth opportunity, good products and, in general, a bright future if they run their business well. What do you think?