He already knew that.
Surowiecki doesn't need me to remind him of Page Rank. He refers to it himself
- in the introduction to the book - though to my mind he overdoes things a bit.
Describing the wisdom that he'll delve into in depth in the rest of the book,
he writes:
It's the reason the Internet engine
Google can scan a billion Web pages and find the one page that has the exact piece
of information you were looking for.
What he means by this
is that the Page Rank system incorporates the searches of millions of users into
a composite that tells us what's most useful (to others) and what isn't. Does
that also mean that Google can find "the one page that has the exact piece
of information" we wanted to find? I doubt it.
But then again, I rarely want to find an "exact piece of information".
Instead, I use search to point me in interesting directions. Uncovering questions
is much more interesting than finding answers, and if crowds of Google searchers
who aggregate into a particular Page Rank don't understand this, then I doubt
that we can really call them wise.
Go to: Are crowds really that smart?