Wisdom of Crowds - Web 2.0 Style

Web 2.0 communities have generated some great buzz with respect to tapping into the wisdom of crowds. This attempt at a collaborative chapter by Joseph Jaffe on his next book written by his readers tries to draw wisdom from a crowd of individual thinkers (and then publish it). PicksPal is an example of the true wisdom of crowds in predictive markets. According to Tech Crunch PickPals overall record against the spread, has been 562 - 338 (a 63% win rate). Now they have a Web 2.0 March Madness Pool. Both are modern examples of community in action, but don't confuse the two. Only one shows the true wisdom of crowds. If you have not read The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, I highly recommend it. It will make you think about how this concept can be applied in your business.