That's a good summary of the basic book thesis, but in my humble opinion it is already widely applied, because it seems to be the fundamental principle behind the "Web 2.0" buzzword. The power of "Web 2.0" systems comes from the centralization of decentralized information, from the unification and aggregation of widely distributed knowledge: user-generated content (file-sharing, information-sharing, blogs, blogging, and wikis) and user-organized content (tags, tagging, and "folksonomy"), see http://www.vs.uni-kassel.de/systems/index.php/Web_2.0
-J. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 6:02 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam Subject: [FRIAM] Amazon.com: The Wisdom of Crowds: Books: James Surowiecki The thesis is that good decisions can be made by crowds if they are: - Diverse - Independent - Decentralized - Good method for aggregating the results. I started on the book a while back while discouraged after the democrats shot themselves in the foot the last election. Thinking crowds were stupid, I was surprised a bit by the author's thesis. Anyone read it? Have opinions? Got ideas how to apply it to community modeling? -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
