This got me thinking and reminded me of the idea of collective intelligence. In today's world, when I travel someplace new or just want a new restaurant to eat at, I almost always turn to the internet to see restaurant reviews and ratings. This is similar to Wikipedia in the way that there are many people contributing to one "review" of the restaurant to give you an overall rating. I think that because of the fact that it is a collection of opinions rather than one so called "expert" it gives you a really good sense of what places are good and which are not. This idea of collective intelligence is something that I keep seeing more and more all over the web and i believe it is much more affective than any single source ever could be.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Collective Intelligence
The other night I was watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the travel channel. It was an episode where he travels around China eating strange foods like blowfish and other poisonous animals at renowned restaurants around town. He had a few locals traveling with him but he mentioned at one point during the show that he found out about most of the restaurants online.
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I agree completely. Reviews are more helpful when you have multiple people speaking their opinions on a subject merely based on the fact that the more people there are commenting the more likely it is you will find an opinion that you identify with.
ReplyDeleteI am always going on the internet to find reviews. It really is helpful to get other opinions and there is so much information available online. Whether its ratemyprofessor.com or the user reviews on Amazon I am continually using collective intelligence to make choices.
ReplyDeleteI am in the process of getting a new phone, and truly, there are so many rumors that I hear from friends, so I end up looking online for reviews and videos. In a way I am realizing it is almost the same thing. Except some of the people creating reviews online have more of a technical background. I do often take people's word online for truth, which I should probably try to do more research before believing them.
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