My Produsage Experiences

My previous post describes a produser as productive users, or produsers, engaged in the act of produsage.
In my personal life, I am a member of some online communities where I could be considered a “limited” produser.
As a member of Netflix, I select movies on my queue and rate movies that I have seen. This information is collected and helps inform Netflix of my interests as well as popular interests of the community. Netflix then suggests new titles to me and the community based on our selections. For example, “members who enjoyed this movie also enjoyed these…”
I am also a member of allrecipes.com, where people share recipes. Not only are you able to view recipes, you are able to view ratings and recommendations. Here you can see helpful hints, like “needs extra garlic” or “only use half the oil!” As you search for recipes, the site offers alternative recipes that may better suit your needs. I have rated recipes and added a helpful hint. I have not yet posted my own recipe though.
Both of these sites offer open participation and communal evaluation. Movies and recipes may rise and fall as leaders depending on requests, but not people. When a recipe is highlighted as a “recipe of the week” the author is also recognized. The recipes are unfinished artefacts as hints and suggestions change them depending on the taste of the reviewers. Content remains available and members are motivated to participate for the shared communal purpose; there is a limited reward though.
Outside of the technology realm, I would consider myself a produser in the intentional community where I live. I am an active member in groups and I participate in conversations about improvements and moving our community forward. I am not motivated by personal gain, but rather the good of the community. These groups are open to all members, yet there is limited time spent on evaluation. We solve problems with a probabilistic approach, through trial and error. While we all have different skills and experiences, all members are able to contribute. However, as members contributions become less useful, they rarely drift to the outside of the community to make room for more useful contributors. This is an area for improvement as well as an increased granularity of projects to encourage more participation. Our improvement and sustainability are ongoing projects as we are faced with new challenges from replacing the roof on our community center to preparing our common spaces for our aging population.
I discuss my professional produsage on this week's discussion board.

Principles of Produsage

What is produsage? Is it a noun, verb or adjective? In the book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, Axel Bruns introduces the term produsage. When participants are not passive consumers, but active users participating in ways that are constructive and productive of social networks, they are productive users or produsers, engaged in the act of produsage (p. 23).

Here are the four key principles of produsage that Bruns presents.

Open participation, communal evaluation - Members contribute their knowledge to create useful content. By including a wide range of members, the varying backgrounds and experiences increase the usefulness of the content. The community evaluates the contributions and the members, and those members that offer usable content "rise in prominence."
Fluid heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy - While some have more expert knowledge or experience, all members have an equal ability to make a worthy contribution. Leaders emerge based on contributions and their standing declines as their contributions do, so it is always changing.
Unfinished artefacts, continuing process - Projects are broken down into the smallest bits and the content is shared among the members. The produsage (not product) is infinitely unfinished and continuing.
Common property, individual rewards - Content will be available to all participants, past, present and future and is maintained and protected. Participation is motivated by the ability to contribute to a shared communal purpose. Members gain personal merit from contributions which encourage more participation.

Free!

All of these Web 2.0 technologies are available to everyone for a great price: free! But how can companies provide these services for so little? Some sites get you excited about the free services then introduce you to other services that cost money, usually a nominal fee.
The combination of free services and paid services is explained in an interesting interview with Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, I heard on "Fresh Air." He wrote a book titled Free: The Future of a Radical Price where he talks about how these hosting sites are able to use free services as marketing. This excerpt tells how the Jell-O brand used this concept in the early 1900s. This is an example of how harboring the hive can actually earn money. You can listen to the entire interview, about 30 minutes, as well.