Tech Companies Draw on 'Wisdom of the Crowds'

An anonymous reader writes "News.com is carrying an article on a 'mini-conference' held at Yahoo's HQ this past Wednesday. The get-together put representatives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and HP together to talk about their experiments with predictive networks. The 'wisdom of the crowds' allows these companies to make use of the collective knowledge their employees hold to answer important questions for the company." From the article: "David Pennock, a principal research scientist at Yahoo Research, said the company has created a currency called a Yootle. It's described as a 'scorekeeping system for favors owed.' Pennock offered as an example a programmer offering to write a piece of code for a few Yootles. Or, when organizing a dinner outing, one employee could use an internal SMS tool to bid 2 Yootles for Italian and 4 Yootles for Mexican. 'If you don't get to go to the restaurant you want to, you get compensation' in Yootles, he said. Related to Yootles is Yahoo Research's experiment with a fantasy prediction market for technology called the Tech Buzz Game. It's a modified version of software licensed from NewsFutures in conjunction with O'Reilly Media and features topics like Atlantic hurricanes and portable media devices. Winners are those who predict how popular a topic will be on Yahoo Search. "

Comments

I think this has a name

[UbuntuDupe]

That sounds remarkably similar to the indifference vote that Paul Birch likes to promote. You bid for your preferred option until the money you allocated toward it would make you indifferent, and if you don't get your way, you are paid that much (instead of paying that much). If you do get your way, you pay your bid. I makes you, in essence, indifferent to the outcome. His example:

Let's try a simple example. ... You and your friends want to go to a restaurant. But which one? The Peking Duck or the Spaghetti Italiano? Charles prefers Chinese, but you're a bit strapped for cash and Italian's cheaper. You bid 50p. Charles goes 60p. The girls join in. Amy is on a diet and bids 50p for the Duck, but Beth is always hungry and bids 70p for the Spaghetti; the score is now £1.20 for Italian, £1.10 for Chinese. Amy looks at Charles, who goes up 11p to 71p. You decide to bid another 2p. Charles shakes his head. Amy reluctantly adds another 2p for Chinese herself. The final bids are £1.22 for Italian, £1.23 for Chinese. So off you all trot to the Peking Duck. Amy and Charles fork out 52p and 71p respectively; Beth gets 70p and you get 52p. Amy and Charles get the fancier but less fattening fare they wanted; you get enough money to cover the higher prices, and Beth gets enough for a larger helping. The waitress gets the penny left over.

Re:I think this has a name

[eln]

I prefer the system we use at my office: We stand around coming up with suggestions for 30 minutes. Invariably, every restaurant suggested is shot down by some other member of the group ("I'm not really in the mood for Chinese today..."). Eventually, we all sort of migrate out the door, get into someone's car, and magically end up at a restaurant no one can even remember suggesting, and we eat there.

Re:I think this has a name

[maomoondog]

The problem with Birch's scheme is that individuals are incentivized to lie about what they want in order to get more money from the group. In the example given where Charles is willing to subsidize a trip to Chinese food, you could extract extra money from him by pretending it's a huge disappointment to you.

For a strategyproof scheme, check out the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism. Basically, everyone gives weighted votes about something, and the winners of the tally pay a penalty equal to the imposition they caused the rest of the people. Only trouble is, this penalty has to be completely discarded to prevent hyjinx...

Re:I think this has a name

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I couldn't follow that what so ever..

What you mean is "If your choice doesn't win then you don't pay, if it wins then you pay whatever you bid".

Plain English. :)

Re:I think this has a name

[hibiki_r]

Unfortunately such a system can be 'gamed', like many board game players can tell you.

If you know someone really wants option X, but you don't care either way, you can bid against option X, hoping that person will outbid you. Then you'll get money while eating at a place you liked anyway. It's really not much different from pumping the value of your buddy's item on ebay, or proper playing on 'Princes of Florence'

Re:I think this has a name

[rhombic]

Unless your choice agrees with the majority, in which case it is beneficial for you to be dishonest and disagree.

In other words, in the listed example, say you wanted Chinese. It's apparent that Chinese is going to win, so it's in your best interest to bid, say , 50p for Italian. In the end, you end up getting the Chinese dinner you wanted, and you managed to extract 50p for the privilege, rather than paying a small amount that you would if you had been honest in your desire to get Chinese.

Like many such systems, these things only work if everyone is utterly honest. And thus have no relationship whatsoever to the real world ;)

Re:I think this has a name

[silentounce]

Your right, this system has existed for centuries. I'm not sure if this Paul Birch knows of it. The system is actual the etymological root of the term "handicap". It's not exactly the same. But it relies on the same principle.

Re:I think this has a name

[NoOneInParticular]

And then Joe pays a buck for Italian, and combined with your 50p this tips the scale. Off you go, eat Italian you didn't want, and paying 50p for the privilege.
Note that in this scheme you're not going to be able to lower your bid, so this is quite a likely outcome.

Re:I think this has a name

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with all this crap when capitalism works perfectly well.

Re:I think this has a name

[sootman]

This is starting to sound too much like a game we used to play at retreats. The leader breaks the group into smaller groups--say, 6 groups of 5. He then writes on a blackboard "The object of the game is for you to get as many points as possible" and explains the rules:

- There will be five rounds.
- Each group has to choose a color (red or green)
- If every group votes green, everyone gets 100 points.
- If some groups vote green and some vote red, the green groups lose 100 points and the red groups gain 100 points.
- If every group votes red, everyone loses 100 points.
- (Scores can be varied, Interesting, on a split vote, if the scores are -50/+100, or -100/+50, instead of +100/-100.)

Everyone quickly realizes that if they vote red, they'll either a) gain points or b) lose points but be just as bad off as everyone else. Of course, if everyone would just vote green, everyone would always win, but of course that never ever happens--each group thinks "well, someone might vote red, so we better vote red too, because if someone else votes green, we win; whereas if we vote green and someone else votes red they win and we lose."

The leader then adds up the scores--some high, some low, some negative, some positive--and the total itself isn't even always positive. (There's always at least one group that goes out in a blaze of glory--it's all in fun, just points, not like it's actual money--voting green every time and losing 500 points.) Then they show that if everyone would have voted green, everyone would have had 500 points, and the room would have 3000 points (using my example of six groups). They then point out that the object of the game was for YOU to get as many points as possible, where 'you' = the whole room. (Not sure how that works in languages with different words for 2nd person plural.) Everyone learns a little something about cooperation--or human behavior and self-interest, at least.

In any case, this whole lunch-deciding system sounds interesting as an academic exercise but I can't imagine anyone doing this crazy money/voting thing. Any group that organized (or anal) would probably make a rotating schedule of local places, or let one person choose each time, or some up with some other scheme. I just take a book to lunch and eat alone. :-)

Re:I think this has a name

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, I found this more interesting than any of the games mentioned in the Wisdom of Crowds - thanks for sharing!

Re:I think this has a name

[ofcourseyouare]

Hi Sootman

Thanks for this -- I was discussing your post with my friends last night -- we have a couple of questions, please!

* You say there were five rounds -- were the results announced at the end of each round? Did this affect the way people voted next time?

* Was it anonymous -- so if you voted red, no-one knew/ no-one would "punish" you? (However lightheartedly).

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed - and happy holidays...

Martin in London.

Re:I think this has a name

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the waitress. Thanks for the fuckin penny, you ungrateful shytes!

Re:I think this has a name

[sootman]

> You say there were five rounds -- were the results announced at the end of each round?

Yes. With a big scoreboard on a blackboard or whiteboard, with a column for each group and a row for each round, and another table to keep score.

> Did this affect the way people voted next time?

I'm sure it did. :-)

> Was it anonymous -- so if you voted red, no-one knew/ no-one would "punish" you? (However lightheartedly).

Stupid language--I'm not sure which 'you' you mean. :-) I hope a bit more detail will help:
- the groups are separated enough so they can't really hear each other's internal discussions
- within the group, I forget if voting is anonymous or not. I think not. I don't remember any pencil-and-paper voting. In fact, now that I think about it, I think they point was actually to reach consensus. (Another 'learning point' of the game. Though if a group decided to just do a quick show-of-hands vote, they could. But still, they all have to agree that that's how it will be decided.)
- each group has a 'spokesperson' (not a leader, just the one who submits the group's vote.)
- there is a time limit on each round--short, like 2-3 minutes. (Adjust the limits for more fun! ;-) )
- Devise a way for each group to be able to vote, and not be able to change their vote at the last second. One way is to have two envelopes, one with a green piece of paper inside and one with a red piece. When the round is up, each spokesperson walks to the front of the room with their envelope. The envelopes are then opened and their decision is written on the board for that round.
- Usually between each round, the game's leaders would try to emphasis how great it would be if everyone voted green. Sometimes they'd take one person from each group and give them a little side session and say "really, try to get your group to vote green his time."

I don't remember any type of 'punishment' ever being a problem, other than the general theme of "I'm voting red, so the worst that happens is if I go down, you all come with me."

Basically, what happens, is the discussion eternally goes in circles: If we vote green, and everyone else does, then we gain. If someone else votes red, we lose. If someone else votes red and we do, we gain, unless everyone votes red, then we lose--but at least we tie with everyone else.

I just realized this seems to be a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Unfortunately, all the words associated with this game--red, green, vote, consensus--are too common for any worthwhile Google searches. But if you're in a school, church, etc. and have access to materials about activities for retreats, you can probably find more information. It's not quite a 'party' game since no one at a party wants to learn. :-) But for retreats, schools, classes, etc., it's great.

Re:I think this has a name

[ofcourseyouare]

Hi Sootman
Many thanks for this extremely clear and detailed summary, very much appreciated. My girlfriend had done a little game theory, and she pointed out that, as you say, it uses the same priniciple of gameplay as the prisoner's dilemma. However, the game you describe manages to turn these principles into a much more interesting actual game, and one that can be played by large numbers of people.
Thanks again for taking the trouble to write, and have a great Christmas and new year.
. all the best
. Martin in London

I am surprised it took this long...

[BWJones]

I am surprised it took them this long to implement as a similar project was implemented at select federal intelligence agencies through DARPA funding back in early 2002 to evaluate possible intelligence leads and threats to national security. Unfortunately the Total Information Awareness program developed out of this work and the true benefits of predictive networks using human intelligence have not really panned out due to an almost pathological reliance and worship of technology supplanting human intelligence rather then supplementing it. Only more recently have projects based on simple, yet tremendously technologies such as wikis been gaining more traction.

Re:I am surprised it took this long...

[ScentCone]

I am surprised it took them this long to implement as a similar project was implemented at select federal intelligence agencies through DARPA funding back in early 2002 to evaluate possible intelligence leads and threats to national security.

You may also recall that a particularly bad round of reporting on some related work (wherein people in the defense/intel world were "gambling" futures on which head of state, for example, would next come under attack from within, etc) resulted in headlines like "Government Officials Place Assassination Bets." They actually had to shut that one down because the media idiots got enough people to make congress creatures uncomfortable. I hope they just moved the research out of the bright lights and kept it up, but it just goes to show you that these slightly odd-seeming areas of research can be wildly misinterpreted by people who get all of their interpretation in 10-second sound bites. Um, or slashdot summaries.

Re:I am surprised it took this long...

[BWJones]

Have no fear as "betting pools" work *has* continued and they are proving themselves to be very effective. Also, you are quite correct about your assessment of "odd-seeming areas of research", as they often, particularly in a basic research sense turn out to be incredibly valuable. One classic case was a member of congress bitching about the NIH funding studies to examine bird songs without knowing or understanding some of the neuroscience implications of that work.

Re:I am surprised it took this long...

[Best ID Ever!]

I hope they just moved the research out of the bright lights and kept it up

I was actually the lead engineer on this project, and it's completely gone (or at least as far as my company is concerned). The publicity led to a number of private sector prediction markets, but it turns out that most companies, while they are enthusiastic about trying them out, don't want to pay much money for implementation. Perhaps Google et al. will be able to show their value.

Re:I am surprised it took this long...

[ScentCone]

I was actually the lead engineer on this project, and it's completely gone (or at least as far as my company is concerned). The publicity led to a number of private sector prediction markets, but it turns out that most companies, while they are enthusiastic about trying them out, don't want to pay much money for implementation.

Bummer. I can only imagine the number of quite cool projects that evaporate that way for one reason or another (and not always for a good reason!).

Re:I am surprised it took this long...

[lukateake]

*cough* data model? *cough* Let my username be your guide, Best_ID_Ever!.

Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 1950s

[ZahnRosen]

'You can't predict what any one person will do but you can predict a crowd's actions.' - a rough paraphrase of Asimov

scorekeeping system for favors owed

[tverbeek]

My little sister always managed to keep score in our house without the use of technology. ("I took out the trash for you one day three weeks ago.") The rest of us (even Mom and Dad) found it really annoying... bordering on petty and selfish, and we're all glad she grew out of this (mostly). Doing favors for people shouldn't involve keeping score.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Erixxxxx]

On the other hand, one should never perform labor for others for free or without expecting something in return. It is entirely selfish of someone to expect others to perform labor/favors for them for nothing.

Maybe your sisters problem was that she didnt trust she would be compensated when there perhaps was no basis for that lack of trust. However, there is nothing 'selfish' about expecting and/or demanding compensation.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[eln]

I agree. Keeping score means the favors aren't really favors, they're more like non-monetary loans. Personally, if I end up paying for someone's lunch, or giving them a quarter for the vending machine or whatever, I don't expect that back, and I don't even necessarily expect them to reciprocate in kind. Doing something nice for someone else is its own reward.

In the case of siblings, though, the desire to do good for its own sake is generally trumped by the desire to one-up your sibling at every opportunity. Your sister was probably doing that partly so she could be lazy, but mostly just to irritate you.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Lazerf4rt]

On the other hand, one should never perform labor for others for free or without expecting something in return.

You do get something. You get to live in an environment where the lives of the people you deal with have been made a little easier than they would have been, without your help. And that makes your own life a little easier.

However, there is nothing 'selfish' about expecting and/or demanding compensation.

Whether or not you call it "selfish" is not the point. The point is that, if you expect some quantifiable form of compensation, you leave yourself open to disappointment and feelings of resentment. And that's your problem. If you still want to be like that, though, hey, it's your choice.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[mollymoo]

On the other hand, one should never perform labor for others for free or without expecting something in return.

For many people, thanks or a sense of satisfaction are often sufficient 'something in return'. It would be a pretty unpleasant an inefficient world if the majority expected or demanded some other reward for giving directions, holding a door open or allowing a car to pull in.

However, there is nothing 'selfish' about expecting and/or demanding compensation.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:
selfish, adjective
(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure : I joined them for selfish reasons.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Lazerf4rt]

I totally agree with you. This "yootles" idea is hyper-lame, and doomed from the start. Ohh - some idiot wants to eat supper at Denny's, but instead he has to go to Burger Basket, so he gets compensated 5 yootles? Christ. Get over it, man. Just go eat at Burger Basket already. Seriously, if I have to offer some guy "yootles" to get him to eat a meal with me, I don't want to hang out with that jackass in the first place.

The only people using this crap will be dorks with overdeveloped senses of entitlement. Eventually, they won't be able to stand each other, and they'll just stop doing things together.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[tverbeek]

On the other hand, one should never perform labor for others for free or without expecting something in return.

What a cold and empty approach to life. Sounds like you don't have "friends" of even "family"... just "business associates".

However, there is nothing 'selfish' about expecting and/or demanding compensation.

No, that's pretty much the definition of it: what matters to you is yourself, not the needs or wants of others.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[rsadelle]

Doing favors for people shouldn't involve keeping score.

Yep. It reminds me of something my yoga teacher told us: "There are three kinds of people in the world. The thief takes without ever giving back. The businessperson looks at everything as a transaction - equal for equal. The yogi gives without expectation of anything in return." When I do someone a favor, I'm attempting to be the yogi, not the businessperson.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Anonymous Coward]

But Yogi was always taking pic-a-nic baskets!

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Jherek Carnelian]

Hey man! Great job on that, I bet you took "Quoting out of Context 101" didn't you?

Add this back:

It is entirely selfish of someone to expect others to perform labor/favors for them for nothing.

And the temperature of his life gets a lot warmer doesn't it?

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[tverbeek]

No, not really. You've done a swell job of giving him the benefit of the doubt, but by taking that sentence out of context, you changed its whole meaning. Following the first statement like that, it serves an extension to it, simply rephrasing his thesis for emphasis: that all "favors" should be quid pro quo. In that context, "someone" refers to any person who asks him to do an unpaid favor, and "others" refers to the people being asked: such as himself.

And even if we go with your interpretation that he's merely saying that he doesn't expect people to do things for him, that's just cooly self-reliant, not in any way warm. And it doesn't negate his downright cold attitude toward helping others.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Jherek Carnelian]

The yogi gives without expectation of anything in return.

Is the yogi not seeking to attain a level of spiritual enlightenment? Does he not believe that doing favors without asking for compensation is part of the path to enlightenment?

Seems to me that he is expecting to receive compensation then, just not directly from the person benefiting from the favor, but rather to lighten the load of his karma which is itself kind of a spiritual score-card.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Jherek Carnelian]

even if we go with your interpretation that he's merely saying that he doesn't expect people to do things for him

That's not my interpretation. The keyword here is "expect." My interpretation is that as a general rule, nobody should go around expecting others to do them favors - nothing about his willingness to do someone a favor.

You've assigned a whole self-focused meaning to his words that isn't necessarily there. Unless your goal is to portray him as "cold" it is much more reasonable to see it as a statement that people who expect something for nothing are selfish, which is pretty much what he literally wrote, in the sentence you excised.

Re:scorekeeping system for favors owed

[Anonymous Coward]

His self-focus is self-evident.

Yootle domains: Get 'em while they're hot!

[RobertB-DC]

A quick whois at gandi.net shows that while yootle.com and yootle.net are taken, you can still get .org, .info, and several others.

That whois also reveals something else -- Yahoo! didn't get the .com and .net, as far as I can tell. You would think they'd have thought of that before announcing the name of their new online currency... checking Domain Tools' whois shows that the .com has been registered since 1999, and the .net since 2005. Neither is an active site.

Re:Yootle domains: Get 'em while they're hot!

[Red Flayer]

Yahoo! didn't get the .com and .net, as far as I can tell. You would think they'd have thought of that before announcing the name of their new online currency...

Yahoo! isn't announcing a new online currency. You'd think that people would bother to read TFS (or TFA, but who am I kidding?) before posting something like that.

It's an internal currency used to represent favors owed. It's used to enhance collaboration, and to help resolve differences between people who lack the social skills, desire, or time to compromise within a group.

Brilliant

[MyLongNickName]

For an example of the wisdom of the masses, just look here. If that doesn't convince you, I do not know what will.

Sounds like it would would work really well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...until the Chinese Yootle farming industry takes off.

Unlike US currency, Yootles have real backing valu

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo built a big vault where they store one flooz for each yootle issued. The Federal Reserve should take note.

"Yootles?"

[Rob T Firefly]

Who came up with that name, My Cousin Vinny? "Two yoots..."

Re:"Yootles?"

[EVil Lawyer]

It's like "util" -- the economics/philosophy term... but closer to "Yahoo". Get it?

Re:"Yootles?"

[SixDimensionalArray]

Mod parent up - good point on "util"!

Gaming the system

[TheWoozle]

So you just always bid for a restuarant that nobody, under any circumstances, will ever actually want to go to. When you actually *want* to go somewhere in particular, you can outbid anybody else.

Anyway, my point is...this is great, except human nature will always win out. The system only works if people participate. To get maximum participation, you need some sort of incentive. As soon as there's incentive, people will figure out a way to game the system.

Re:Gaming the system

[Harmonious Botch]

In small groups ( ie: a carful ) if this strategy works, it will be quickly imitated by others. Then all of the participants will eat horrible food.

This looks like a prisoner's dilemma. Iterative prisoners dilemmas force such behavior to stop.

Re:Gaming the system

[ghostlibrary]

I agree it'll be gamed, sadly the restaurant choice loophole is what struck me as obvious, too.

'Gaming' food ordering example: The group used to order a bunch of pizzas, then there was a typical college 'food frenzy' of consuming slices 'til all the pizza was gone. If you didn't eat quick, you didn't get as much pizza. Unless...

A friend of mine and I would make sure there was an anchovy pizza in the order. We didn't like anchovies per se, but unlike the rest of the group, we didn't hate 'em.

So the pizzas would arrive, we'd eat the non-anchovy pizzas like the rest, but didn't have to gorge ourselves. Once the 'desirable' pizzas were gone, we still had a full anchovy pizza to share (that no one else wanted).

Never underestimate techies trying to score free food.

Re:Gaming the system

[Anonymous Coward]

. Once the 'desirable' pizzas were gone, we still had a full anchovy pizza to share (that no one else wanted).

So you're reward is being fat and having bad breath?

Good work :)

Re:Gaming the system

[tinku99]

no you can't game it that easily. for simplicity take two people, they both bid for restaurants that they don't want to go to, they lose... it'll be like the 2 men horse race where the human winner is the rider of the losing horse... but instead of seeing each other in real time, you have to preset your own horse's speed...

Yootle is a lame name

[badzilla]

I think Yootle is a stupid name for a unit of fake currency. How about... hmm... hey I know, "Flooz"! No wait, even better, "Beanz"!

Re:Yootle is a lame name

[numbski]

Stupid obscure tech bubble 2.0 reference win you nothing. :\

Re:Yootle is a lame name

[lottameez]

Uh. Google. Yahoo! Woot! That is Web 2.0 or Web Two - O! HA! [choking noise as dragged from desk and beaten by coworkers]

Re:Yootle is a lame name

[An ominous Cow art]

"I wager 400 yahootles on the newcomer" just doesn't sound right. They should have listened to their inner geeks and used 'quatloos'.

Re:Yootle is a lame name

[Anonymous Coward]

Hows about Whuffie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie

More info on prediction markets

[FleaPlus]

Prediction markets are a major interest of mine. I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so I'll have to make some more extensive comments later, but in the meantime here's some neat links on prediction markets:

* Tradesports, a real-money prediction market on political and news events. The 2008 president market currently gives a Democratic a 50% probability of winning the White House in 2008, Hillary Clinton a 55% probability of getting the Democratic nomination, and John McCain a 49% probability of getting the Republican nomination.

* Futarchy, a system of government semi-seriously proposed by Robin Hanson which would use prediction markets as a means of government decision-making. People would vote on values, and use a prediction market to determine the optimal government policies to achieve those values, which would help get around some of the godawful stupid things democracies tend to do.

* Storage Markets, a real-money (but limited access?) market on the computer storage industry

* The Policy Analysis Market, a proposed prediction market for policies in the Middle East. It was IMHO a great idea, and could have potentially prevented some of the stupid decisions which have been made in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the government ended the project after it was the media (including slashdot) had a knee-jerk reaction to it and demonized it. The funny thing is, after the project was cancelled and the media learned more about it, coverage of the project became much more positive.

Re:More info on prediction markets

[Anonymous Coward]

i like this blogger

http://www.chrisfmasse.com/

and he has another blog like site with some other leading thinkers....

http://www.midasoracle.org/

i think an rss feed is worthy of the latter, its good stuff and keeps you well informed...

Re:More info on prediction markets

[maynardco]

FYI...Storage Markets is a "play money" based prediction market.

Re:More info on prediction markets

[FleaPlus]

Ah, right you are. I guess I remembered something about them doing something with real cash, but I guess they're giving it out as a prize.

I predict this story will be..

[browman1]

.. 23 popular

Wisdom of The Crowds

[mpapet]

Indeed...

The companies mentioned have some very smart people working for them. It's a shame the PHB's pretty much kill whatever innovation is happening in the belly of those beasts.

The wisdom of the crowds is frequently spoiled by individuals that game the system. Microsoft astroturfers on /. is a good example. So-called climate science coming from the U.S. Gov't that doubts global warming is another. As a former Tech Buzz Game player I can tell you from personal experience the game was stopped and restarted with new rules because of cheating.

The end result is the wisdom a crowd was supposed to provide essentially evaporates.

Re:Wisdom of The Crowds

[Anonymous Coward]

The wisdom of the crowds is frequently spoiled by individuals that game the system. Microsoft astroturfers on /. is a good example.

Errr, yeah. People who think that anything short of drooling Linux fanboyism must be coming from Microsoft employees have "wisdom" that could possibly be diluted.

Yootles?

[SixDimensionalArray]

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the wisdom in a name as gawd-awful as "yootles"! I mean, you wouldn't expect to see some guru walking around and complaining that his/her existential theory of quantum physics and intracellular electromechanical equilibrium & interstellar space travel (IANAG - I am not a guru in those regards) was upset by not having enough "yootles" to buy a cup of coffee. Yootles are yet another substitute for good old hard cash?

Ok, maybe it's a little bit interesting, but seriously folks..

-6d

Re:Yootles?

[Red Flayer]

Yootles are yet another substitute for good old hard cash?

No. RTFA -- or even TFS.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the wisdom in a name as gawd-awful as "yootles"!

Your failure to see the wisdom does not mean there is no wisdom present. See other posters for a history of the term (hint: it's Y + utils).

In essence, yootles are a way for Yahoo! employees to communicate to others how important something is to them.

Re:Yootles?

[SixDimensionalArray]

Oh, please don't misunderstand my mostly light-hearted comment - I recognize the economic "utils" hidden in there. But is it not a strange thought to think that anyone other than Yahoo would use a "yahoo branded" kind of value system? I don't know why, but that just sounds funny.

For the record (my economics is a bit rusty), AFAIK a util represents the value or utility of the item to me, and that is not tied to money. However, the saying "put your money where your mouth is" is something that stands out to me as putting something of value on the line to state how important something is to a person. A "yootle" is a tool that only has value if it has someone enforcing its value or if it is something everyone values. Since everyone already uses "currency", and currency exchange, etc. is already figured out, why not use that?

This is actually a problem I've seen crop up in knowledge economies/markets and compensation for cooperating/contributing to them. From what I've seen in past experiments, anything less than something that makes you happy when you have it or hurt when you don't (like money) doesn't seem to work. Of course, that's a pessimistic view - that everything revolves around money. I hope that really isn't the case, but sometimes I fear it is!

SixD

It's pretty clear...

[hikerhat]

that yahoo is going down the shitter at top speed. Get out now before you pay check comes in yootels (or whatever) rather than dollars!

Re:It's pretty clear...

[Phoenix666]

The last company I worked at decided it wanted to pay people in "GoJos," which stood for "Good Job." They were essentially big blue marbles they would dole out as a pat on the head whenever you kissed ass well enough. They even gave us Crown Royal bags to hold them all. After 200 GoJos you could redeemed them for prizes like stereos and plasma screen TVs.

This was in lieu of paychecks.

I was out of there by nightfall.

Wisdom of the crowds = part of the long tail?

[dada21]

I've been playing with a collaborative filter engine called CRITEO that is completely blowing my mind in how it opens opportunities to gain that "wisdom of the crowds" bit for the average user -- not just huge companies like Amazon or these emergent venture capitalized corporations. Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on some Wordpress code to actually integrate this relevancy predictor (my results should be forthcoming by the first week of January) and it really seems like you NEED a predictive filtering engine to utilize the crowds to give each individual within the crowd relevant results as compared to just generic "ratings."

This Yootle system is interesting, but it doesn't go far enough. Just because the crowds skew towards a majority opinion doesn't mean that opinion is relevant to the majority (I know it sounds weird). Each individual will have certain likes and dislikes within that majority opinion. Without some sort of relevancy predictor, the "majority vote" is useless.

Hopefully we will see more people utilizing systems such as CRITEO's to actually take the input of the masses (thousands, millions, or even billions of decisions and ratings) and run them through a real-time engine to give everyone a unique view of what they might want/need/like/hate/etc. As I spent more time beating on trying to come up with my own quick/real-time solution, the more I realized that using someone else's services let me focus on what is best for my customer -- my content, generally.

The prediction system to rank Yahoo searches is very 2005 -- it really just capitalizes on the likes of the masses, which means it is hitting the top head of the long tail rather than the more important remaining 80%. I'd love to see a search engine that allows you to "rate" your search results or even individual search results in real time, maybe in collaboration with a system like CRITEO. Anyone interested in working on one? I'd be willing to bet that such an investment of time would give many of us a better search engine that actually returns results that are relevant to the individual's tastes rather than the masses' collective "favorites" which are usually way off base. It would also reduce the spam results greatly and open the door to the wisdom of the masses actually making a difference for each individual. What I like about collaborative filter is that 5 seconds per user can mean days or weeks saved for that user in the long run because of the 5 seconds "donated" by the million others.

Re:Wisdom of the crowds = part of the long tail?

[Chris Shannon]

This sounds quite similar to StumbleUpon. Customized recommendations from collaborative filtering.

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[rumplet]

The intellect of individuals in a group decreases exponentially as the number of individuals in the group increases.

Foresight Exchange

[mathx]

Just a reminder, as posted in many many slashdot posts before (see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aslashd ot.org+ideosphere), the http://ideosphere.com/ site has been running a (non monetary) experiment in freemarket intelligence for a long time. The more players the more fun (and better information extractable from the market). Go play. -math

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[ZahnRosen]

'give a thousand monkeys a typewriter and a thousand years and you'll have the complete works of shakespeare'. Thanks to the internet we now know thats not true.. /. being the exception, of course.

Photo of said crowd

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is the crowd you are looking for.

Wisdom

[jandersen]

As several authors have put it - the intelligence of a crowd equals the IQ of the least intelligent member divided by the number of people.

Re:Wisdom

[seb249]

Sounds like a human resources department trying to justify their existence by putting in place a warm and fuzzy voting scheme. You dont get what you voted for but you still feel loved cos you got some cute named currency type thing

Beware: there's another phrase

[Quiet_Desperation]

The madness of mobs.

Re:Beware: there's another phrase

[plopez]

Here's a link for that:
http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne001.htm

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds"
By Charles MacKay

1841

See also dot bomb.

Yahoo Yootle...

[__aaclcg7560]

Maybe they should learn Yiddish to find more colorful words?

Wisdom

[addsalt]

What does the Yootle have to do with a wisdom of the crowd concept? It has no predictive aspect, only a petty score keeping of how much work you do and how little you get your way.

Not a new concept, but loads of new applications

[Lord Puppet]

I've always been interested in ways of tapping into the crowd as a resource.

Slashdot and Digg got a lot of attention as news filters, but these things are now being used everywhere. Trusted Places for restaurant reviews, Crowdstorm for shopping recommendations, wine sites, health sites, etc., etc. I can't wait to see where this is all headed. What's the next logical step?

I can't be the only one

[goldcd]

who reads that and immediately concocts a plan to rig the system.
Take for example the restaurant example. I may not be too bothered which one of those two we go to, but if I do choose the most vile restaurant I can think of and make that my choice, then I'll still get to eat where the most yootles wanted to go, but I get given Yootles as well.
This works for a while, until more people twig and junk on the bandwaggon - eventually nobody'll come out with a net-yootle amount - and you'll all end up eating in the foul restaurant.

Also...

[Quiet_Desperation]

Is that Yootles with stars or Yootles without stars?

Was Dr. Seuss the keynote speaker?

The crowd is suddenly not so wise...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when they fail to agree with your lefty worldview. Doesn't make them wrong though.

Wisdom of the Crowds?

[mediocubano]

Obligatory demotivator reference: "None of us is as dumb as all of us" http://despair.com/meetings.html

Re:Wisdom of the Crowds?

[mediocubano]

Oh yeah and this one too: "Never understimate the power of stupid people in large groups" http://despair.com/idiocy.html

I bid $10 for "eat out of a dumpster".

[khasim]

Damn, it looks like I lost again. Well, looks like everyone else is paying for my lunch again.

Yes, it is an extreme example, but it shows how you can "game" that system. Not a good idea.

Re:I bid $10 for "eat out of a dumpster".

[Spaceman40]

An indifference vote is a technique I have invented for making decisions in which many persons have a legitimate interest. -- Paul Birch

Your "vote" would be invalid. Do you really think that the other people in the system would pay you $10 to not eat out of a dumpster? The entire system is really set up around the assumption that participants have a legitimate interest in the result of the vote. Your "gaming the system" is just you not really having an interest in the result, so the assumptions are broken.

In other words, you can go eat out of the dumpster, we're going to Chili's (or whatever). :)

Re:I bid $10 for "eat out of a dumpster".

[Kaki Nix Sain]

The grandparent's choice of a dumpster is a bit extreme, but groups often have some set of options that they find anathema. People in that group would likely know that set. Now draw a line around that "bad" set in the option-space and choose something just on the plausible side of the line. You get a rational seeming bid that you can have high confidence will be outvoted. No dumpster diving needed (btw, with my friends, bidding Chili's would be pretty much an equivalent to the dumpster vote).

Microsoft believes in community efforts?

[JohnnyComeLately]

Isn't this the same company that scoffs at similar situations that result in source code being written, re-written, etc For example, open source which results in Linux? It's a bit of an irony.

Although, they've done this many times before. Take part of something well respected and has community involvement (Java, etc) and then consume their efforts later. I'd be very careful what I share with Microsoft. Not because I don't like them, but because of a very long track record.

Other than that little tidbit, it sounds like a great idea. I try and get my sister companies to help out each other, but everyone is always so focused on their own piece of the pie. Harvard Business Review (December 06) had an interesting write up ( Managing the Right Tension) which talks about the competing priorities of making collaborative efforts that help the community but hurt your individual unit. They use it in the sense of cross-organizational groups, but it's still a concept you could apply to industries. How often do you seen companies move on an opportunity to help the whole industry at their own expense?

Color me a tad cynical

[rs79]

"Or, when organizing a dinner outing, one employee could use an internal SMS tool to bid 2 Yootles for Italian and 4 Yootles for Mexican. 'If you don't get to go to the restaurant you want to, you get compensation' in Yootles"

Alex I'll take "most retarded use of the Internet for $1000".

It's amazing poeple could go out to lunch harmoniously for decades prior to this stunning reveleation.

No wonder Yahoo is not relevant these days.

Re:Color me a tad cynical

[Technician]

No wonder Yahoo is not relevant these days.

MS and the Zune player comes to mind. Gee what do people want in a portable music player?

Drag and drop. Cross platform compatibility. Compatibility with online music services (more than one). Simple easy sharing. Wi-Fi connectivity to eliminate cords and enable sharing would be nice. Small lightweight form.

They kinda hit on a couple features but overall missed the boat entirely.

Wi-Fi that won't connect to your home network? What a miss. No USB drive capability? Incompatible with even the MS format Plays for Sure? What a miss. Big and bulky?

Maybe they will work with a consumer group and get feedback next time.

"Bidding" system is kindof silly

[KimJongSick]

What if there's a tie? Say my mother, who has horrible musical taste, wants to listen to Mike Reid. Say I want to listen to Pink Floyd. We both bid the exact same on each artist/group, and so we end up listening to Iris DeMent. Who wins? Nobody, 'cause now we have to listen to utterly crap music. Besides, calling your currency the "Yootle" is just _begging_ for 4chan or Fark to turn it into some kind of horribly unpleasant sexual innuendo.

Wisdom in signatures

[Archangel Michael]

My signature defines the true wisdom found in crowds. Moo

My system is better

[everphilski]

A wife who cooks + leftovers = Money in the bank, not the fast food restaurant.

Re:My system is better

[silentounce]

Hell yeah. That's what I got going on, too. Well, if you change wife to Mom.

Re:My system is better

[pkulak]

"Well, if you change wife to Mom." Good thing too, because the other way around is illegal.

Re:My system is better

[hotdiggitydawg]

"Well, if you change wife to Mom." Good thing too, because the other way around is illegal. I'm intrigued... just how do you propose to achieve the first way?

Re:My system is better

[silentounce]

I used to go by the name John Titor.

I prefer Quatloos

[WalletBoy]

Right now the exchange rate is much more favorable for Quatloos. Most places that take the Yootle also take Quatloos anyways so it's not much of a problem.

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[Lazerf4rt]

"You can't predict what any one person will do." - Asimov

Actually, you can start to predict what any one person will do, and sometimes even what they will say, once you get to know that person. It's a hell of a thing, this "getting to know somebody". I guess Asimov never tried it.

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[ZahnRosen]

There were at least 14 books for the story arc I'm talking about... he covered that base... I do suggest you read them, they are quite good.

Crowds do not possess wisdom...

[Yaa 101]

They only possess mob crew behavior.

An humble suggestion...

[LoyalOpposition]

I don't know; I think stupidity is a much more powerful force. Is there some way we could draw on the stupidity of crowds? In warfare, for example, you could draw on the stupidity of crowds, and when you "bomb somebody back into the stone age" you might do it without loss of life or property.

-Loyal

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[rezac]

Mod parent up.

Was just about to post something similar about Asimov and the Foundation Trilogy (ultimately his whole body of sci-fi works) when I searched for "asimov" to see if anyone felt the same.

Read those back in high school, time to head to the attic and dig them out.

Hmmm

[Jalestra]

You know who would take this over? Prostitutes. As far as I know it's perfectly legal to exchange sex for Yootles...Not to mention improving the exchange rate by throwing in a little *coughs*something extra....and as no money is exchanging hands, that would get them out of entrapment. Where did that come from you ask?I don't know, but there it is.

I bid 500 Quatloos...

[camperdave]

I bid 500 Quatloos that they change the name to something more meaningful.

Extrapoling this + DRM

[monkeyboythom]

and in the future all of our choices will be similar to, "choose whatever you want, as long as it's vanilla."

Re:Extrapoling this + DRM

[hotdiggitydawg]

Sorry, Henry Ford already has prior art on that concept...

I predict

[Anonymous Coward]

that if this becomes popular, we'll end up making decisions using self-fulfilling software.

What's the value of a yootle?

[Colin Smith]

I ask because it takes a certain amount of physical time and work to perform a favour.

Anyway, who destroys the yootles? If you keep creating them but they're never destroyed, they'll become worthless very quickly indeed. The yootle inflation will be huge.

Whuffie

[DoorFrame]

Sort of like Whuffie from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom although that was based on general goodwill and esteem, not specific favors per se. Wiki's definition is probably better:

Whuffie is the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow's sci-fi novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. This future history book describes a post-scarcity economy: All the necessities (and most of the luxuries) of life are free for the taking. A person's current Whuffie is instantly viewable to anyone, as everybody has a brain-implant giving them an interface with the Net.

Wisdom of Crowds

[Phoenix666]

Whenever I hear the phrase, "Wisdom of Crowds," I think of lemmings.

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[Anonymous Coward]

And go back even farther to Freud.

The next logical step

[Colin Smith]

Is filtering out the idiots. You know, the ones who have no clue what they're talking about but who are very keen to inform you of the fact.

You have to remember that for every person with an IQ above average, there's one with an IQ below average. That democracy doesn't take this into account is it's largest failing.

You don't like Yootles?

[Colin Smith]

You should try Euros. WTF thought that up? It's the classic politicial compromise and as such is crap, it's like the inspirational equivalent of grey sludge.

Re:You don't like Yootles?

[SixDimensionalArray]

You make an interesting point. Maybe none of these darn "value exchange"/currency systems really make any sense, including dollars, euros, yen, yootles, Beanz, etc.. So here's a question - would you rather have the Star Trek economy instead?

SixD

It's worse for/with me.

[antdude]

I'm worse because of my physical disabilities. I can't chew and have spicey food. So, it eliminates a lot of food I can have. I usually have to tell people that I need soft food that doesn't require chewing and not spicey (even a little spicey bugs me). I can eat pasta (love lasagna), meat loaf, smash potatoes, boneless fish, etc. It is even harder with restaurants when ordering because 90% of the food are texts, so I have no idea if the food is soft, not spicey, etc. It is easier with buffets so I can pick food that I can have and not waste money on food I couldn't have.

Re:It's worse for/with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

do you wonder why people don't want to go to lunch with you?

Re:It's worse for/with me.

[antdude]

Duh. I knew that for my whole life (over 30 years). That is why I rarely go out.

Predictive networks and markets reflect consensus

[wintermute42]

Predictive networks and markets may reflect the "wisdom of crowds", but this "wisdom" is just the current consensus view. There are times when the consensus view is very wrong, even when it comes to predicting what masses of people will do.

For some time leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections in the United States I followed the Intrade and Iowa Electronic markets which were real money futures markets for, among other things, the US House and Senate races. The idea is that because these markets attract thousands of people and because they trade real money futures, they may be accurate predictors of future political events. This speculation has been born out in the past.

Leading up to the mid-term elections the Intrade and Iowa Electronic markets had more or less the same prediction: that the Democrats would talk control of the House. But the chance given for the Democrats taking the Senate was only about 33%. There were a couple of close elections (Webb in Virginia and Tester in Montana), but the Democrats ended with with a very thin majority in the Senate. In retrospect the political markets seem to have underestimated the wave of discontent among voters.

The "wisdom" of crowds can be useful, but it is not always accurate, as the last election showed. People naturally tend to think that tomorrow will be like today, which was like yesterday. In general this view is correct. But extreme events take place (market crashes and extreme economic declines or bubbles or even wars). The "wisdom of crowds" is very bad at predicting drastic change. The "crowd" just goes along placidly while extreme events lurk on the horizon. In fact, if anything crowds tend to ignore evidence that change is coming, until the change is upon them.

Yootles?

[revery]

Yootles? I thought it was called Whuffie?!

What's Whuffie you ask? Well, click the link, and if it sounds interesting, go here and download the book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. (it's free)

Yootle Compensation Fairness Critical

[fyoder]

Yootle based exchanges had best be fair, or else expect problems as demonstrated by scientific research.

Community currencies and 'yootles'

[hughbar]

We've had one of the proponents of yootles (I'm not going to embarrass him by name) on the International Journal of Community Currencies (ijccr) mailing list (on Yahoo).

All I see was/is an attempt to create a currency to monetize favours, which (IMHO) ought to be freely given in an elightened society anyway. This is probably an attempt to talk up something that is not to do with the 'wisdom of crowds' anyway.

For anyone interested in community currencies and with a little patience, I'd suggest the above list and http://www.le.ac.uk/ulmc/ijccr/ the journal itself.

Re:Asimov's Foundation series discussed this in 19

[L7_]

^ah"Who's there?"fhalksdafafhau7777"Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself."fann21na1naathoughtaaa;;,c"Long live the King!".ahjiohuibzb23oygaact1jjjh"Barnardo!"hhhhhhh hhhamlet

Visit a CCC echo chamber lately?

[sethstorm]

Unfortunately, readers and acolytes of these fine echo chambers seem to get it wrong(and not mind it)- just see how fast a legitimate and correct idea gets the user banned. If you object, they hide behind the vanguard of untouchable private entity. Thus, you have the makings of one unified entity that prefers to silence the crowd instead of listening to it. See the cancellation of the Fairness Doctrine as an example of an echo chamber rejecting the crowd.

Distribution

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

ou have to remember that for every person with an IQ above average, there's one with an IQ below average.

Only if the distribution of intelligence is the same above and below. You can have many slightly stupid people and a genius or in the reverse many slightly intelligent people and one brain dead.

DKP is a prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKP
look under zero-sum dkp
yahoo engineers spend yootles to gain access to a mexican restaurant
in world of warcraft, i spend dkp to buy loot, the dkp is recycled/distributed to other guild members
dkp/yootle is a measure of "favors owed"

Foresight Exchange

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

There is also Foresight Exchange.

Next: Search Engines

[Randym]

What's the next logical step?

Search engines. Google's PageRank algorithm may point to highly rated *websites*, but searches themselves can be rated. Since most queries are less than 3 words, track where all less-than-3-word-queries go to, and rate *those* sites higher. Since humans are doing the searching, they will automatically tend to NOT go to splogs (based on their evaluations of the snippets that Google returns), thus dropping splog ratings while raising the ratings of legitimate sites: this is the very definition of "the wisdom of crowds". Google has the infrastructure to do this -- if they only would.