2008 - The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds

Overview

The current stage of the development of the World Wide Web, often labeled "Web 2.0," is dynamic and controversial. Web 2.0 consists largely of content developed by consumers for consumers, but created by many different authors and often distributed across many different sites. While Wikipedia and other "social" sites are most controversial, the number of cheap or free applications permitting almost anybody to develop or participate in distributed projects increase daily. Are such sites an important stage in democracy permitting wisdom to be accumulated from thousands of contributors? Or do they drive out expert knowledge and encourage the spread of inaccurate, misleading, or downright dangerous information?

Speakers