COM 125 Week 4: You Get What You Give

"Gift Economy", although sounding like a term you should study for your next economics exam, a gift economy is something almost everyone takes part in. One gift economy I take part in would have to be Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that offers free information and definitions on any kind of topic you could think of. In fact Wikipedia.org provides a definition of exactly what it practices, free software, as, "Free software...is software which can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed with little or no restriction beyond the requirement that source code must be made available It is on the web to help people, and is not asking for anything in return" (Wikipedia.org Free Software Foundation "Free Software"). Wikipedia has been there for me whenever I had to write papers, give presentations, or just wanted to learn about something in a simple, clear definition. Frequently updated and ever-changing, this website accomadates to our fastly-growing generation. Not many encyclopedias can you search the term "P-Diddy" and "World War I" in the same one. Although I can't physically give Wikipedia.org a "gift" back, I can acknowledge its helpfulness in my papers, and i often refer people to the popular website for help, given they haven't heard of it, which would be unlikely.
In Peter Kollock's, "The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace", he states that, "The relative or absolute anonymity of the recipient makes it all the more remarkable that individuals volunteer valuable information – one cannot realistically count on the reciprocity of the recipient in the future to balance the gift that has occurred." The former quote is making a point to how amazing it is that these people who work for Wikipedia.org are doing all this hard work, of constantly updating their website and handing out free information for nothing in return. I think in interent gift economnies, one is not as pressured to reciprocate a gift to a giver, than they are in friendship, or relational gift economies. The fact that the giver is unknown, and not known on a close, personal level, makes their giving of the information in their encyclopedia less attached to an actual human being, therefore the millions of college students who use their website aren't able to always reciprocate. Even my posting on this topic, on my blog is another example of a gift economy i take part in. Richard Barbook, put it simply when he commented on blogging as a new form of gift economy saying, "When I was writing The Hi-Tech Gift Economy, the open source movement was the iconic example of non-commercial production over the Net. In the intervening period, blogging has become the public face of this new way of working. What was once the preserve of a small minority is now a mass phenomenon" (Barbook, The Hi-Tech Gift Economy).
Gift economies are a common practice on the internet, and in our day-to-day lives. I belive that gift economies that offer free software such as, Wikipedia.org, or Blogger.com, are great ways to help people out who need information fast. One good thing about the internet is that is it always changing, and updating to be the most recent version that correlates to the present day, and that's why Wikipedia.org is more helpful than an old, dusty, encyclopedia I would have to travel to the library to get. I personally feel that Wikipedia.org is one of the best free software agents out there. It is well known, and covers so many terms, it also offers different languages for people from different language speaking regions.

Barbook, Richard. "The Hi-Tech Economy." First Monday. 1998. 9 Feb. 2007 .


"Free Software." Wikipedia.Org. 3 Feb. 2007. Wikipedia. 9 Feb. 2007 .

Kollock, Peter. "The Economies of Online Cooperation:." 1999. University of California, Los Angeles. 9 Feb. 2007 .