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When the Web 2.0 phenomenon began, I believed in it completely. It was revolutionary, fresh, and I fell in love with the so-called democratic nature of the “share all” philosophy. But gradually I have lost confidence in the “wisdom of the crowds” tagline that most social networking sites seem to harp on. Things aren’t exactly democratic and often we do not get the smartest choices. Business Pundit puts it across perfectly [via]:
Wisdom of crowds is really a misnomer. It should be referred to as “the
aggregated wisdom of lots of individual decision makers.” Crowds tend
to feed of themselves and they get stupid as a result. Unless members
of the crowd have an incentive to act honestly and seriously, and
aren’t influenced by other crowd members, the results of the crowd will
likely be wrong.
Technorati Tags: web 2.0, social networking, Digg, wisdom of the crowds, business model
by Patrix | on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 11:17 pm | 
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August 8th, 2006 at 7:10 am reply
interesting insights. The wisdom of crowds do not really exist, better talk of the Wisdom of wise crowds. I think that collective wisdom often leads to collective stupidity when there is no expert input.
August 9th, 2006 at 5:19 pm reply
Now, don’t tell anyone, but that quote puts into words what I think I have believed somewhere deep inside for a long time!
:)
p