Earlier this year, Hunting With Pixels caught up with Shay David from Kaltura on the New York leg of our epic interviewing spree. Kaltura are a leading open-source video platform, helping business and educational clients deliver top quality video solutions. In this interview, Shay David talks about the difference between open and closed systems, and where the seemingly modern phenomenon of crowdsourcing fits in. Traditionally, there are two primary social forces that lead to things “getting done”, and these are closed forces, in that people generally have no say over how they work. Managerial command is a social structure where orders are given and executed in a top down format. For example, in the army, a commander gives the orders, and a private carries them out. Or else in the traditional educational system, the teacher tells students to sit down and study, and the students do. In a larger and more ethereal sense, there is pricing and market forces. Shay gives the example of hailing a taxi on a main road. Nobody has ordered the taxi to be there, however they turn up because there is the likelihood of them being paid. In contrast, an ‘open’ force, like Wikipedia, does not rely upon these methods of coercion. Wikipedia is run entirely by volunteers, who work on what they please, and have no real central command. This does not fit into either of the two traditional models. However as a phenomenon, ‘Crowdsourcing’ isn’t actually that new. In 1914, there was a radio relaying system, where volunteer radio enthusiasts would pass messages on a chain of short ranged sets. In fact, any volunteer organisation cannot be explained by our standard closed systems. As an academic, Shay David has studied extensively the theories of cooperation and coordination around the economic and social aspects of open-source. Kaltura was founded by him and several like-minded others, around the idea of using the principles of crowdsourcing in the world of media. With the great levelling power of the internet, open source systems are becoming more and more common. Businesses that can harness this, and turn it to their advantage, will find themselves attracting truly passionate people, with wild and new ideas http://www.vimeo.com/25699966
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