Swarms use a combination of crowd-sourcing and artificial swarm intelligence to filter the best information on the web by subject area. Just go visit a couple of swarms and you'll get it. Swarms are not as complicated as they sound. In fact, they are actually very easy to use.
Like a wiki on artificial intelligent steroids.
Inspired by the collective behavior social insects such as bees and ants, swarms are a way for groups of people who have a common passion, interest or goal to share information and self-organize. Anyone can contribute to a swarm through things like Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, but not all contributions are equal. A "swarm intelligence" algorithm combines the best content and filters out the worst based on the collective judgments of others in the swarm and on the "digital pheromone trail" created through connections in social networks, blogs, tweets and tagging systems.
The Benefits of Swarms for You
Swarms help you separate the signal from the noise. They not only keep you informed in a very efficient and fun way, but also help other like-minded people realize who you are and your proximity to them in the swarm.
Use Swarms to:
- Spread your message and expand your reach.
- Promote your blog, Twitter, etc.
- Define your personal brand.
- Increases your productive time.
- Incite action around what matters to you.
- Meet people who share your passions.
- Just have fun
A few things to note about swarms:
- They are emergent. Swarms are user generated and self-organized.
- Control is decentralized. There is no chief editor, only swarm intelligence.
- A swarm is collective intelligence filtered through artificial intelligence.
Swarmkarma: Your ranking in a swarm.
Swarmkarma is to Swarmforce what PageRank is to Google. It is a universal index number by which people are ranked within swarms. The higher a person's Swarmkarma, the more influential that person is to the swarm. The more you contribute good stuff to a swarm and your peers recognize you, the higher your Swarmkarma will be.
How to get started
The easiest way to add something to a swarm is by using hashtags (#) on Twitter, keyword tags on Flickr, etc. You can add things like tweets to a swarm using a tool made for it like Swattr, or use one of your favorite existing Twitter tools (like Tweetie for the iPhone for example), by simply joining a swarm and hash tagging the name of the swarm. For example, you can go to swarmforce.com and join the "Money" swarm. After you are a member, you can then use Tweetie to add a tweet you think would be relevant and interesting to the swarm by simply tagging it #money.
So go ahead and browse all the swarms that are currently out there, or you can even start a new one (login required). Just go to the signup page to login using your Twitter or Facebook account. You can add more to your profile later if you choose.