The Promise, the Tool and the Bargin

Shirkey says that there are 3 rules to a successful social tool: 1) A plausible promise 2) An effective tool 3) An acceptable bargain. The promise convinces the user that he will like the tool, and many others will too, so it will be a worth while investment of his time. The tool has to be promoted for a specific job. Most good tools are created and manged by the wisdom of the crowd rather than a single person. The bargain is what the user can expect of others and what others can expect of the user.

The promise, tool and bargain are very important for a social tool because they are the methode for creating a growing user base. And no matter how good the tool is, without a substantial user base, they are worthless.

The bargain in wikipidia is that users can depend on the wiki for reliable information because false articles take much longer for prankters to create than for responsible users to delete. The bargain for flash mobs are that members will astonish the people around them and have a real impact.