Introduction to Collective Intelligence and Crowds: Structure, Roles, and Identity Minitrack

Internet technologies now make it possible to produce new products, and services by catalyzing large scale social networks and crowds. These are collectives, and they can be very loosely coupled and still be productive. What do they produce? What should they produce? While social networks assume organic growth and an embedding that takes place over time, crowds can be assembled rapidly. Between the two extremes are a host of different organizational structures, in which already committed members of a community are deployed to create or improve ideas. And the traces of these new organizations are also varied, ranging from ephemeral short messages to curated collaborative databases. The output often takes the form of digital media, and the organization often relies on social media. These broad themes are addressed by the three papers that have been selected for this year's minitrack. The papers are briefly summarized.