It’s called “Social Swarming” and it lets groups of online users answer questions, make predictions, and express opinions, together as a unified Collective Intelligence.

The amazing thing is that Social Swarms are  smart, outperforming polls, surveys, and experts on a series of tests – including predicting the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the NFL Playoffs, and the 2015 Super Bowl.  (See posts on Predictive Swarms).

But what about Market Research?  Can we use social swarms as a tool for conducting rapid online focus groups, giving fast insights into prices or politics or preferences?

It turns out, Social Swarming gets groups to converge extremely fast. Below is a video of 34 people agreeing on the fair price of a Movie Ticket in only 22 seconds!

It was conducted using UNU, a free online tool for Social Swarming.  To see how it works, just watch the video. (Note – each magnet is controlled by a different user, all working together).

• Collective Swarm Intelligence predicts the next US PRESIDENT:

• Collective Swarm Intelligence chooses the best DATING SITE (note – in this video, the data is displayed as a simulated “slime mold” which reveals the group’s collective deliberations in a different visual format. I find it insightful…):

It seems the UNU platform for social swarming could be an extremely valuable tool for rapidly capturing in the views, opinions, preferences, and insights of social groups.

For more on the use of social swarms to evoke Collective Intelligence, check back regularly.  We will continue to post examples of how swarms provide insights.

To sign up to be a BETA TESTER of the UNU platform, click here…

To read a SHORT PAPER on Social Swarming, click here…