The problems with Social Media and the Wisdom of Crowds

Categories: Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on July 10th, 2007

My cousin Kevin sent me this interesting article The cult of the amateurr that takes shots at blogs, wikis, social networks, and the overall social media movement. It’s good to explore all sides of an issue. So let’s discuss where Social Media doesn’t work.

Here’s a few reasons where social media doesn’t work:

Opinions vs Facts and Analysis
“what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment.” Opinions, viewpoints, individual thoughts, who cares? I’ve been in this debate many times, typically with the journalism community who want fact clearly separated from opinion. Could it be that experts in every (and I mean every) field now have a voice and can share it?

Amateurs provide crappy content
I’ve been criticized a few times for my crappy grammar and spelling. Get over it, because I already have. As long as my message makes sense, I’m not going to spend the additional time to fix it.

Identity
“Since contributors to Wikipedia and YouTube are frequently anonymous, it’s hard for users to be certain of their identity — or their agendas”. True. This is why I believe that an identity system will be key, I predict Facebook will be a big factor in this.

Google rewards those that are popular and interesting, rather than information that is correct.
Oh boy, is this one every true? I know so many A-listers that say bombastic and untrue opinions in order to gain links. The best ones? “X is dead” or “why X Industry is a sham”.

“Crowds are not very wise”
This is true, but applies to individuals as well as crowds. Is it possible that a crowd is no more wise percentage wise than any individual?

Socialism doesn’t work online
This is actually one that I realized, as there are NO public wikis that are not vandalized. It doesn’t work. Giving equal power to all members and letting them have the ability to radically alter others work always leads to vandals and trolling.

Noise vs Signal
Blogs, social networks, twitter, just a bunch of noise. To some, this content is excessive and irrelevant. To small groups of people every type of content and passion is important. Small, distinct, focused communities will band together and their conversations will be signal of a high degree of relevancy. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Love to hear some thoughts from you, what’s wrong with Social Media?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under Social Media, Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[...] Jeremiah Owyang, from the blog Web Strategy by Jeremiah, has a list of reasons why social media and the wisdom of crowds doesn’t work. [...]

Posted by Elroy Jetson » Another reason search is broken on July 10th, 2007 at 10:19 am

While I am a big fan of social media, the following issues come to mind:

1. Social media plays to the tech crowd only. The vast majority of internet users could really give a damin.

2. Social media is restricted to internet access. Countries that are not heavy on increased bandwidth aren’t going to utilize social media that much.

3. Some social media doesn’t “advertise” the “why” as much as they could; while viral works, it only works if the common person can understand it.

4. The wisdom of crowds is often an overused phrase. In fact, some aspects of “crowd behavior” are downright simple (read some of the reviews on YouTube, for example).

5. Opinions vs. fact: this is something you’ve highlighted fairly well; most social mediums, such as blogs, are actually people expressing their opinion on a certain topic or issue. Opinion doesn’t equate to fact (subjective v. objective).

6. As you also mention, identity is a key problem that hasn’t been addressed. With many networks, and this includes social networks, it wouldn’t be too difficult for me to create a fake profile to make me more of an expert than I consider myself to be. Anonymity, while valued for obvious reasons, does create problems because it creates an issue w/accountability.

Wikis (socialism): this is assuming that all people have adequate knowledge about a particular topic and/or subject matter. Not the case.

Posted by Damon Billian on July 10th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

I have seen and heard plenty of video and audio of Andrew Keen and his arguments and debates, and they do not stand very well. When he is asked questions, he just goes back to one of his point like “I don’t believe that (insert web2.0 meme) is right for society” with no strong argument.
http://conversationhub.com/2007/07/09/video-david-weinberger-and-andrew-keen/
http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/07/09/andrew_keen_rescuing_luddite_from_the_luddites.php
http://strumpette.com/archives/453-WEB-HEAVYWEIGHTS-Keen-vs.-Weinberger-Brawl-Gets-Bloody.html

Posted by Nick Dynice on July 10th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

Damon

What you mean? Yelp is social media, that has nothing to do with technology.

So do all the US presidential candidates!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on July 10th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

Nick

Some bloggers/speakers/media folk have figured out that going against the grain is tremendous ‘link bait’ material.

Not sure if this is the case, but it should could be.

Hi Jeremiah,

Not sure I follow the Yelp comment? Are you using this as wisdom of the crowds? If so, I think quantified/qualitative reviews are somewhat different than some of the other social media being utilized.

You asked for opinions on some possible weaknesses of social media & that’s what I responded with. ANY social media, be it Yelp, YouTube or other, has potential issues of abuse.

Posted by Damon Billian on July 11th, 2007 at 5:15 am

Thanks for the clarification, I mis-read you earlier.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on July 11th, 2007 at 5:31 am

No problemo:)

Posted by Damon Billian on July 11th, 2007 at 7:01 am

[...] The concept is great, in theory. There are just some times when the social conscious is not the best direction. Web 2.0 is great for observations, but not much deep analysis. [...]

Posted by Web 2.0 for Better or for Worse : Chameleon TechnoBabble on July 11th, 2007 at 11:10 am

I don’t think there’s much wrong with social media — what’s wrong is that deep analysis is being framed into certain buzz words that many use in oversimplified discussions without knowledge about what they really stand for.

The amateur-identity problem that Keen stresses because of the inherent room for manipulation he is seeing in amateurs vs. professionals, their hidden agendas, has many layers. The name of the person writing is only the most obvious one — it doesn’t solve the problem of manipulation and hidden agendas, however:

If I recall the events that lead to the current war in Iraq correctly, it is the professional media that has been mislead the most (as aknowledged by the NYT) and the independent amateurs that were giving a voice to a more pluralistic debate. That the professional media should be immune to hidden agendas especially if they are owned by arms industry magnates like in France (Lagardere, Dassault) is highly questionable, as Jürgen Altwegg points out in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (July 4th, 2007); the internet, as Altwegg — a professional journalist by Keene’s standards — argues, gives more room for tough questions, putting more pressure on journalists in turn to address these issues.

‘Wisdom of crowds’ indeed is an overused phrase, especially if it is used without knowing, that certain criteria have to be met to make a crowds’ decision wise. Surowiecki never alleged that crowds are wise per se. The crowd requires diversity of opinion, independence in their decision making, decentralization, and aggregation.

http://quilp.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/wisdom-of-crowds-or-dumbness-of-the-mob/

Posted by Alexander Braun on July 11th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

Alexander, thanks for this insightful comment.

Posted by Jeremiah Owyang on July 11th, 2007 at 4:24 pm

You’re welcomed, Jeremiah. Love your blog!

Posted by Alexander Braun on July 11th, 2007 at 5:07 pm

even pro journalists bring their identity and cultural predispositions to bear on their reporting–wether they want to think they do or not. a partial perspective it’s an inevitable aspect of being a human being with a life history. and then, of course, there’s the agenda of any publication’s parent company to consider.

even the non wiki version of an encyclopedia was edited by a particular demographic of people who determined what was worthy of inclusion and what wasn’t.

crowds may not be wise, but when considered in aggregate, they’re definitely less partial.

Posted by jenks on July 12th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Hack again?!

Posted by Brithney on August 1st, 2007 at 8:09 pm

RE: Damon’s comments, I agree with them all except the assertion that “Social media plays to the tech crowd only.”

Yes, social media still touches only a self-selected subset of the population, and yes, geeks are at the front lines (they started using wikis over 10 years ago… well before wikis were referred to as social media or Web 2.0), but many people use social media today. Don’t think the millions who use MySpace or Facebook are necessarily all that geeky.