Really interesting Shannon, thanks!

Given your interest, I think that you (and the other readers here) would be really interested in some recent research that I have come across that theorizes about crowds and such similar phenomena.

It’s called “The Theory of Crowd Capital” and you can download it here if you’re interested:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2193115

In my view it provides a powerful, yet simple model, getting to the heart of the matter. Enjoy!