James Surowiecki outlines through cultural examples the basic idea of collective intelligence and that time after time it is shown that the group estimate to a given problem is more accurate than most of all of the individual guesses. He then lays out a key set of characteristics for what makes a wise crowd. They are: diversity of opinion, meaning that users come from many different intellectual backgrounds; independence, that they do not rely heavily on the opinions of others; decentralized, meaning people can draw upon local knowledge, and a means for aggregating their opinions. He states that while the average is often mediocre in most cases, in decision making it is most often the best. Though he also states that collective intelligence is not always perfect, citing certain examples where experts certainly know better than the crowd.

Surowiecki lays out the particular parameters I will esxamine as a starting point in my research project in looking at the particular incentives of marketing techniques used to maintain a flourishing prediction market. The implications for data gathered from prediction markets will examine the future role of experts, building off of Surowiecki's comments. In addition this work will mark the branching off point from where I examine other definitions of "wise crowds" and how important his characteristics actually are.