Facebook friends are local

This study by Jacob Goldenberg and Moshe Levy looks at the effect of the digital revolution on the geographical distribution of our social networks.

They studied 100,000 Facebook and email users and mapped the volume of communication against geographic distance. It turns out that we predominantly use these digital tools to talk to our geographically close friends.

Facebook friends against geographical location

Idea Markets

This is an idea discussed by Alex Pentland in his book Honest Signals. He only touches on it but it sounds a very interesting way of using group opinions to predict a best possible outcome or solution.

The idea is that people vote not only on what they think is the best outcome or solution but also on what they think the group will choose. This method of decision making does not even require any language exchange. All people have to do is signal to the other sin the group the result they are interested in and for others to be ale to read each others signals.

He gives some detail on how it might be achieved and that it is based on Bayesian mathematics. This is a link to an original article on the idea You can Bet on Idea Markets. It seems a more thought through approach to wisdom

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