Collective Intelligence over the web

I have always been fascinated by the concept of collective intelligence, or the "wisdom of crowds", as coined by James Surowiecki. Surowiecki says "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.” This concept is evident in everything from the stock market (i.e companies being valued based on the thoughts of collective investors buying and selling companies shares), to sports betting (i.e. the "spread" on games is inevitably decided by the collective community betting on one team or another).

In order to have a dependable platform for collective intelligence, Surowiecki says you need four things:
1) Diversity of opinion
2) Independence of members from one another
3) Decentralization
4) A good method for aggregating opinions.

Can you think of a better platform for this than the Web? I think we're just skimming the surface of utilizing the power of the internet, not just as a mechanism for exchanging information, but for aggregating information from all of it's users and packaging it up in a collective way that offers something even more valuable than any one person's insight. Sites like PredictWallStreet.com or Motley Fool's CAPS application have put together collective intelligence systems that will predict stock prices of companies. Wikipedia destroys the assumption that books are written by a single author and utilizes collective user contributions to publish factual topics and (ultimately) record history. How could you use collective intelligence in your business? Where will this trend take the next generation of internet services and content? I'd be interested in your thoughts. Perhaps collectively, we can come up with the answer. . .

-J