Svetlana: Excellent post. I enjoyed it - its interesting to see how companies react when disruptive technologies come into play. Also wanted to point out what seems like a bug on Profy: on top of this page it says "4 Comments" but when I try to add the comment it says "Be the first to comment".

Sameer
ProProfs.com

Svetlana : Great post - very very interesting.

I think social media crowd has wisdom - much like any "crowd", however most of the time it is not tapped into a manner that would give optimal results.

For instance, for wisdom of crowd concept to work well, each member of the crowd should give unbiased opinions, based on his/her own independent decision on whats the best answer. The opinion or vote needs to come from each member, without a group influence, paying attention to just their own judgment and factors. However, when "results" are shown before a person has even voted, any subsequent decision becomes "influenced". So when we make a decision by looking at "friend counts" or "decide to digg something, but have viewed diggs" already received, the vote is no longer independent and a "follow the crowd" bias sets in - a non optimal situation if one wants real wisdom of the crowd. The issue is not with social media - but more with the way its tapped into.

Sameer