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Empire Avenue – Crowdsourcing the Best Content:
We interview Empire Avenue CEO Duleep Wijayawardhana about how individuals, governments and cause organizations can harness social media, virtual markets and game mechanics to engage their communities.
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I’m just not sold on the staying power of Empire Avenue. I have tried to join in with the community who is currently using it but have grown bored of it already. It is a very interesting idea but engagement has been minimal to none, near Friendfeed for the amount of engagement and useful feedback I’ve received (for both gov account and personal account). I think the bottom line for me is that I don’t want to be measured by my online activity. That alone has driven me away from participating further. I wonder if others will feel the same, I guess only time will tell.
Definitely takes a bit of work to get going, and has a high drop-off rate. But look at Twitter, where over 50 percent of people who start last only a few tweets, or none, even. I figure it took me a good six months to understand Twitter. Will Empire Avenue have the same staying power as Twitter? Very hard to say. However, as an experienced social media user, I’m finding it a highly engaging platform. (Interestingly, I would not have known WSDOT was on Flickr if not for EA.)