Collective Intelligence

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network equals approximately the square of the number of users of the system (n2). Since a user cannot connect to itself, the actual calculation is the number of diagonals in an n-gon: n(n - 1), or n2 - n.

- Metcalfe's Law, (Wikipedia) [bold added]

The collective intelligence of the web is a term used to describe the base knowledge of general users of the web contributing to the content of the web. The web is founded on the idea of hyperlinking – as new content is added to the web, it is discovered and linked to creating an organic growth of connections and activity. Google's PageRank system was founded on the use of the link structure of the web to rank the interest or links to sites. The popularity of the collective web-use is used to provide better results. Amazon bases its “most popular” book searches on sales, but also on other factors such as user views and general participation patterns for each product – Amazon insiders call this the “flow”. As Metcalfe's Law states, the value of a network (or the web) multiplies greatly as the number of users increases. Greater success is found when web products utilize the feedback indirectly from user patterns, or directly from user input and comments.

Sample Application: Wikipedia

Wikipedia's goal is to create a free encyclopedia --- indeed, the largest encyclopedia in history, both in terms of breadth and depth and also to become a reliable resource.

- Wikipedia FAQ

Wikipedia is a prime example of the use of the web's collective intelligence to create a widely popular and successful tool. Wikipedia, created by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an online “free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively from users all around the world” (Wikipedia) – now in many different languages besides English. It is founded on the idea that any web user can add or edit any of the entries. This tool is founded on radical openness and trust of its users. The source is not created on the back-end then posted to the web for the user, the source is “blank” and created or edited daily by the users themselves. There is a committed core of users that manage the edit/entry process as well. The collective intelligence of all users of the web is tapped into to create a stronger, more in-depth product.

Technical Aspects

The technology of Wikipedia is founded on the open-source wiki program. They are simple in design and use. The first wiki was created by Ward Cunningham in 1995 and is called the WikiWikiWeb. The term wiki was inspired by the Hawaiian word wiki or wiki-wiki which means “quick” (Brain, "How Wiki's Work").

The base of wiki technology is from the Wikimedia project called MediaWiki and is written in PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor, “P-H-P”, php.net) and MySQL (Multi-user Structured Query Language, “My S-Q-L”, mysql.com) as a database – both of which are open source tools. PHP and MySQL are commonly paired to produce web applications and are nicknamed the “Dynamic Duo”.

PHP is commonly used to develop server-side (“back-end”) applications and dynamic web content. PHP is popular due to its ease of use (having a loose language with less strict rules), its ability to develop graphical user interface (GUI) applications, and its ability to interact with a large number of database management systems, such as MySQL.

Here is an example of PHP used in the context of HTML to print out the lyrics to the song “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” (borrowed from Wikipedia, “PHP”): 

<html>
<head>
<title>99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall</h1>

<p>
<?php
$beer = 99;

while($beer > 2)
{

print $beer.' bottles of beer on the wall, '.$beer.' bottles of beer.<br />'."\r\n";
print 'Take one down, pass it around,<br />'."\r\n";
$beer--;
print $beer.' bottles of beer on the wall.<br />'."\r\n";

}

?>
2 bottles of beer on the wall, 2 bottles of beer.<br />
Take one down, pass it around,<br />

1 bottle of beer on the wall. <br/ >
1 bottle of beer on the wall, 1 bottle of beer.<br />
Take one down, pass it around,<br />
No more bottles of beer on the wall.<br /><br />
Go to the store,<br />
buy some more,<br />

99 bottles of beer on the wall!
</p>
</body>
</html>

MySQL is generally considered easier to learn than other database applications. MySQL was originally written in 1995 with a mixture of C and C++ languages and is owned by MySQL AB. MySQL is a relational database management system and can work on multiple platforms. A relational database is one that presents data as relations in a tabular form of rows and columns (Wikipedia).

The wiki is a powerful tool for collaborative interaction and creation. The combination of PHP and MySQL to collect and dynamically present information has great potential for the future of the Web 2.0 development.

Further…

PHP/MySQL Tutorial: Graeme Merrall, webmonkey: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming/php/tutorials/tutorial4.html

Get Started with MySQL: http://magooswisewords.com/MagoosBook/MySQL/mysql_01.htm

Codd's 12 Rules of Relational Databases (MySQL): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd%27s_12_rules

Set up your own wiki: http://pbwiki.com/
(PeanutButterWiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeanutButterWiki)

List of Largest Wiki's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_wikis

Other wiki projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Other_projects_similar_to_Wikipedia

WikiScience: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science

Critique of Wikipedia:

Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism, lsanger: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25

The Faith-Based Encyclopedia, Robert McHenry: http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html

Why Wikipedia isn't like Linux, Andrew Orlowski: http://www.theregister.com/2005/10/27/wikipedia_britannica_and_linux/

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