I owe an apology to Stefan Magdalinski, from whitelabel.org, who was one of the star turns at Doors 8 (and has nice words to say about the event in his blog). In yesterday’s emailed Doors Report, I managed to omit a “not” and thereby render a sentence about Stefan weird. I said, “he left the project when its P2P ambitions did turn into a sustainable business” – and, as Stefan points out, “noble and public spirited and insane though I am, I don’t quit businesses that I founded at the point at which they become sustainable. We ran out of cash while trying to make it sustainable, I lost my job, and the assets got bought in a fire sale”. A further clarification: I quoted Stefan saying that fewer than one percent of a website’s visitors usually contribute or comment, and that people usually only start contributing after they have been visiting a site for three years. Whereas (he kindly explains) what he actually said was that (research from the BBC indicates that) typically novice users take three years of being *online* before making their first active contribution on any site. “A subtle but important difference” says Stefan; “Also, this doesn’t apply to certain groups: those with a lot of puter experience, and kids aren’t so reticent at all”.
