Wisdom of Crowds...

The topic of the Wisdom of Crowds actually came up at a rather interesting time I'm currently reading a book by Steven Johnson entitled "The Invention of Air". In it he covers the Life of Joseph Presley an Inventor and Patriot who had a strong scientific relationship with Benjamin Franklin. More importantly he covers what he calls his coffee shop theory in which he explains that the rapid scientific and technological advancements of the last two hundred years is mainly due to a ramped free exchange of thought that originated in coffee shops in the beginning of the 1800's. I find it interesting to view the growth between what Johnson calls the beginning of rapid thought exchange in coffee shops where educated individuals where drawn together by the popular social hangout and compare that to today where we have taken the idea of group thought development to a brand new level. From nightly builds to Wikipedia the way that a group can generate content that is not only factual but more extensive often times than one person could ever produce by themselves amazes me.

In terms of the NPR Interview in which he speaks of both the strengths and weakness of the wikipedia and its role in our society, I believe that wikipedia has been becoming a more reliable source for primary information, but I do agree with "Jeff Numberg" in regards to Wikipedias limitations. I founds his thoughts on how the collective process could never truly produce a constant view point that criticism requires to be fascinating...