Communications of the ACM
What Social Networks Reveal About Interaction
PARC researchers found that Wikipedia functioned like a Darwinian ecosystem with success going to members who adapted and gained the most expertise.
Credit: Irish Times
Social network systems can reveal insights into how groups of people can efficiently analyze, filter, and use information to harness the wisdom of the crowd, according to researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). A team led by PARC principal scientist Ed Chi is studying how people work together to produce Wikipedia entries in an attempt to understand how social computing systems can enhance the ability of a group of people to remember, think, and reason.
Wikipedia's informative entries are assumed to be the result of benevolent cooperation, but the team has found that conflict actually drives the productivity. Meanwhile, Wikipedia's growth model has shown that the encyclopedia is moving in a more linear manner, influenced more by members who readily adapt and gain the most expertise, after its initial rapid expansion. Wikipedia's evolution from growth mode to maintenance mode is similar to the stabilization of a biological system and could have serious business implications, Chi says.
PARC researchers also want to understand what motivates people to contribute to social network systems such as Twitter, and how information gets delivered to groups of people, which could help businesses better filter their information overload. Chi says the research could become useful for businesses because "the optimal distribution of knowledge across an organization is how an organization operates at ultimate efficiency."
From Irish Times
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