Vote for Cool Software

That's what Intel wants you to do with the launch of their new website called CoolSW. They are using collective intelligence to help sift through the millions of software companies to find the best one. They've created a social ranking system that allows them to find what's "Cool." I have to admit the software that currently has the most votes in the 'digital home' category is pretty cool. It's a web service that allows people to draw floor plans online, or upload images of floor plans which are converted automatically into 3D Google Earth. Would they have found this company and the many others listed with the 90K+ employees they have? Maybe eventually but they've decided to take the shorter route and rely on anyone who wants to participate in helping them identify and rate cool technology.

This isn't a new concept, people have always gathered together to share information but the internet and the advancements of Web 2.0 allow us to share this information more freely. And those who have taken advantage of this have illustrated the powerful result:

• Google became the number one search engine by using 'PageRank' which uses the search behavior of millions of people to improve relevancy.
• Wikipedia has become the world's largest and arguably the most accurate encyclopedia.
• Innocentive opens up tough R&D problems for anyone to solve - since 2005, 58 of these tough problems have been solved by over 120,000 solvers.
• Cisco's Connected Life Contest resulted in over 600 technology ideas in 3-months that will be used to drive product strategy.

It has been proven that collective intelligence works and those who have jumped on the bandwagon have the competitive advantage. How have you seen 'the power of many' used successfully?