Revenge of the experts? Not so fast…
Newsweek’s Tony Dokoupil has an interesting article suggesting that era of wisdom of crowds is fast becoming the past. We at BooRah, don’t think so!
Recently, I wrote an extensive article titled what beats Zagat? that discusses Restaurant Ratings and Reviews on BooRah. It provides one explanation on how automated systems can leverage content created by the crowd and can perform much better against, so called experts. At the end of the day there is no right or wrong but there are two aspects to be looked at.
- Can the experts be better than a collective group, ie. wisdom of crowd?
- Can the experts provide the level of coverage that a crowd can?
A case can be made that experts have been the single voice and thereby perceived as the authority for a long time. Many reviews for movies, restaurants and events were rated by experts and they could make or break the business through their influential commentary, even though many of us disagreed with the expert. What the Internet has done is democratized the influence process. If I can trust my friend Joe more than Michael Bauer, that’s my choice, but at least I have a choice. At the end of the day, that’s always a good thing.
As for coverage, no expert/system of experts can come close to contributions from getting the masses involved. The level of participation depends on the complexity and pervasive nature of subject in discussion. E.g, for restaurants or movies, the crowds can be a lot more effective than any one expert who can can only cover a small fraction of the domain.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Hey guys, I love your idea. I am a Search Product Manager for a major media company I got a question though on the mobile. It seems you have a stemming problem. I searched for “hamburgers” in “new york”. The results were very good. Then I searched on “hamburger” in “NY” and the results were poor. Lots of Wendy’s. Besides these small issues, I found several restaurants that the next time I go visit one of our brands in NY I am going to get a burger. Would love to talk to you about other opportunities
April 15th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Mike - I remember responding to you directly by email but for the sake of other readers, we are addressing the stemming problem in our next major release, will keep you posted.