Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Wisdom of Crowds

It has been said that there is more wisdom in a group setting because of all the diversity in knowledge it brings. Hence, the wisdom of crowds. It was on this basis that sites like Wikipedia came to be.

However, it turns out that the wisdom of crowds may not exist in some of this collaborative sites. Remember the 80/20 rule in marketing, where 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your revenues? Apparently, it holds here as well. Except here it is more like 1%.

5 comments:

Tony Matta said...

I was always kinda wary of the content on Wikipedia. But then again I don't believe I have ever come across any information that didn't seem correct. Wikipedia in my mind is a great site and one that I use a lot. It always seems to be one of the first links when i use a search engine to find anything. They always seem to have a page about something.

Kristyn-Anne said...

I share that hesitation with using Wikipedia as a source, however I too consult it frequently for a quick reference check. I'm not sure of the validity of this, but I heard a story about a teacher going on to Wikipedia and altering the information on a topic that he had assigned as a paper to see how many students took information straight from, and solely from, Wikipedia. After hearing that I stopped using it as a source for assignments and now use it only for personal reference.

Jillian said...

It's interesting to see that the 80/20 rule applys to sites like Wikipedia and Digg. Although, it should not be surprising because like a business these sites have "customers" who are very devoted and loyal to certain brands, or websites. They can access it any time of the day and many probably spend a lot of their time online and frequently check the site. People question the accuracy of the information on Wikipedia because anyone can edit it. But if most of the information is coming from the same small percent of people who have already been determined to be credible by the monitors of the site, then this is why sites like this that are open to anyone can still be accurate in providing factual information.

Givens_w said...

I have never used Wikipedia just because I didnt like the fact that people didnt give a definite answer. I also thought it was peoples opinion or prior thought. Although some might be true, I never wanted to take my chances. But thats is interesting that only one percent, I always thought it was a loyal fan base but if thats suppose to be a network for diverse concepts it really doesnt make it diverse since the same people are writing there.

Laura said...

I know that most professors do not allow students to cite Wikipedia in papers. However, most of the information on Wikipedia is correct. I think that it should be allowed, especially since it is now more closely monitored than in the past.