Web 2.0 And The Wisdom Of The Few

A large part of the promise of Web 2.0 has been the digital realization of the Wisdom of Crowds. However, it seems that unlike its “power to the people” promise, the Pareto Distribution of the 80/20 fame is alive and well across the icons of Web 2.0.

Thanks to a Stumbleupon link, I found this article on the myth of Web 2.0 democracy from Slate Magazine. In particular, the article calls out Digg and Wikipedia as being less “vox populi”, and more “vox oligarchi”.

Here are a couple of key quotes:

• “1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site’s edits.”
• “Last year, the top 100 Diggers submitted 44 percent of the site’s top stories. In 2006, they were responsible for 56 percent.”

That’s not to say that it’s all bad. Wikipedia is supposedly as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. As the Slate article concludes:

“Digg and Wikipedia’s elite users aren’t chosen by a corporate board of directors or by divine right. They’re the people who participate the most. Despite the fairy tales about the participatory culture of Web 2.0, direct democracy isn’t feasible at the scale on which these sites operate. Still, it’s curious to note that these sites seem to have the hierarchical structure of the old-guard institutions they’ve sought to supplant.”

While this would seem to be a refutation of the democratic underpinnings of Web 2.0, it also points to a different perspective on the issue. Instead of judging a system based upon a simple on/off voting system, what if it were judged by level of participation.

I found this interesting graphic in a blog post by Gary Hayes at PersonalizedMedia.com that addresses the myth of non-participation in Web 2.0 social networks.

As you can see from the graphic, democracy on the web is measured by degrees of influence, which depends upon your level of participation in the total conversation.

So Web 2.0 is not exactly a simple democracy with one vote/one voice, but with different levels influence coming from individual commitment to participation and creation, it doesn’t have to be the tyranny of the few either.