How social computing and P2P activity are changing financial research and lending
Do not dismiss the power of consumers in the internet. To some, social computing and P2P (peer-to-peer) activity appear to be just more irrelevant remnants of the dot com era. This view ignores the sheer volume of information, opinion and services transmitted directly between ordinary consumers over the internet. Each day, for instance, volunteers create close to 10,000 articles for the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
Blogs propagate information and opinion. Close to 40% of US internet users read blogs, user-written online diaries on a variety of topics. This illustrates how easy it is for consumers to follow the experiences of many other users (accurately presented or not) before taking decisions. see chart 2 Social computing can augment to commercial success. Some of the best-performing internet firms rely on user-created content to enrich their services. Customers love to share their views on products they own. Amazon, an internet retailer, publishes such comments to inform undecided shoppers. Other ventures take the idea even further.
http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000201284.pdf
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