some quotes from the long tail  on wikipedia, google and wisdom of crowds

Wikipedia-

Like a biological system, it evolves, selecting for traits that help it stay one step ahead of predators and pathogens in its ecosystem.
 

Paul Graham about google -

“The web naturally has a certain grain, and Google is aligned with. That’s why their success seems effortless. Their sailing with the wind instead of sitting becalmed praying for a business model, like print media or trying to tack upwind by suing their customers like Microsoft and the record labels.”

Don’t try to force things to happen their way, figure out the tend and be their when it happens.

“The answer is not a simple yes or no, because it is the nature of user generated content to be messy and uncertain at the microscale, which is the level at which we usually experience it, as it is amazingly successful at the big picture macroscale.

“Wikipedia, like Google and the collective wisdom of millions of blogs”  [wisdom of crowds], operates on an alien logic of probabilistic systems – a matter of likelihood rather than certainty.  Our brains aren’t wired to think interms of statistics and probability. We want to know whether an encyclopaedia entry is right or wrong.

Market economics and evolution are counter intuitive to our mammalian brains

ie. when designing your roadmap:

  • understand that fundamental parts of the web are counter intuitive to human thinking
  • design your product so it can sail with the wind