by Flemming Funch
Via SmartMobs. In a research paper published in the December issue of FirstMonday.org, Kevin McGee and Jörgen Skågeby attempt to answer the question "Could the ability to give be one of the central features that determines the popularity and success of computer–mediated "sharing" activities, communities, applications, and services?"...there is another dimension to the sharing phenomenon that is not as widely discussed — and which suggests an unexplored opportunity for developers, providers, and consumers of digital media: the strong human desire to give, whether it is advice/assistance (newsgroups), digital goods (music, literature, software), or other resources (bandwidth, processing cycles). Much sharing is almost certainly motivated by reciprocity in one form or another; many times people clearly do "give in order to receive." But there are significant indications that some acts of sharing are difficult to explain easily in terms of reciprocity: it seems that some people simply enjoy non–reciprocal giving.
Should that really be so shocking? The joys of giving are of course not entirely one-sided. It is fun to give when one notices that it has a beneficial effect. Those effects are often bigger when one gives to do good as opposed to when one only gives to instantly get something else back.
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