We’ve seen many examples of how the internet can bring a like-minded group of people together to have insightful conversations, share news and recommendations. But how about solving other problems? Can we come up with the next pop artist, runway model or fashion designer? (Reality TV doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job). How about important problems, such as global warming, clean water, or sustainable agriculture? Can we harness the internet’s collective intelligence to do real good? Or, as anyone who peruses the comments online can’t help but notice, will the loud, dumb people always sabotage the discussion?

I think that finding a better way to harness teh internets will prove to be a key piece of our online experience in the future. As Marshall McLuhan once said, “The message is the medium”. And the message of the internet is ultimate democracy and freedom of expression. If we’re looking to involve a large number of individuals and their different perceptions, the internet accomplishes this natively. TV, however, does not. It simply pushes information out without receiving anything back, an open loop system.

A few groups have embraced the internet as the medium more effectively than others. The group/idea that has most harnessed it to date is politics and protest. From building a grassroots movement around a specific cause or candidate, to protesting injustice in it’s many forms, the internet has proved to be an excellent delivery system for the message to like-minded people. We can see examples in our current political primaries (the fundraising efforts of Barack Obama and Ron Paul) to the protests against perceived unjust treatment of members (Anonymous protests against Scientology).

All that remains to be seen is how we apply these concepts to bigger problems. And from a capitalistic viewpoint, when will corporations take advantage of this power to create better products and market them more effectively? The incentive, and potential rewards are huge and untapped. A message board or forum simply isn’t enough.

Who knows, maybe we will even be able to pick a decent pop artist one day soon.