Critical Mass
I was reading about finding information and one of the most important channels for this is obviously the internet. The material said that one of the criteria or second identifier to verify if the information is accurate or acceptable was critical mass. If the information is cited by more publications, the higher the probability the information is acceptable.
This most certainly have been brought unto the 21st century research methodology, however, I might not agree with critical mass as the web, or to properly point the finger, the people on the web more often than not do not do due diligence to verify information, just take viral marketing for example, most people just like it or repost it or retweet it because their friend or someone they think is of good stature posted it. Who is to say the information is not tainted when these people did not do further research before spreading the word, next thing you know, it spreads like wildfire and that is now critical mass.
If let’s say for example, I’m basing this on a true story, a friend of yours will say that apple is now launching a tablet pc next week, you’d then ask where did you get the info, from a friends youtube stream which showed a live demo of the product. Most would jump in the bandwagon and tweet, repost and spread the word, just to be the first in their gang to be in the know. However, if you would just take a minute or two to take a look at who originally made the video, you would find out that it was the onion who instigated the whole thing.
So with this simple example, I’d say take everything in web as it is and make time to verify the original source of the information, dig deeper to find out the real score. Critical mass does not necessarily apply to the web, even if the information came from a very reputable source, take time to verify, better safe than sorry.