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?
