Beans, Blogs, and Feeds
Four basic conditions? That's all you got, Surowiecki? Your conditions have just met their match: bloggers are a wise crowd.
Diversity of opinion - That's a no-brainer. Bloggers publish hundreds of thousands of posts daily, each one charged with its author's unique opinion.
Independence of members - Except for your friends saying "You've got to blog about that!" bloggers are not controlled by anyone else.
Decentralization - There is no central authority in the blogosphere; publish your blog anywhere you want with any tool you want.
A method for aggregating opinions - Blog feeds make aggregation a snap and there is no shortage of services that take advantage of that fact.
tony curzon price on 10 Dec 07The other problem is that the language on the Council site is much about marketing - marketing to us. That's understandable because these are marketing guys and it's also likely true because this is being run by a leader in the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, a group whose existence and name has given me the willies. It implies that they can manage our mouths when, indeed, that's the one thing that we, the customers, are fully in charge of. If they truly realize that we, the customers, are in charge, then that changes the way you comport yourself in this conversation. Again, you listen more than you speak.
