The latter, probably. Experts have fully absorbed and processed the content. - Sean McBride

I subscribe to the Hilary Putnam idea of a "community of experts:" we can't possibly know everything about the world, so we all rely on experts who specialize in very specific things to tell us about them in general terms. So I'd say the latter. Even the former is just an outcropping of the latter. - Mark Trapp

I think that's the same question with "Book or Teacher?", right? : ) I prefer book with deep searching ability means Internet : ) - Selim Yoruk

They both have their uses. If you are a relative expert in a field, then relevant content is more important. If you know little about the field, relevant experts are more useful. - Rob Diana

I also feel that the people with relevant expertise are more beneficial just because the discovered information may be inconsistant! - Joe Dawson

+1 for finding people with relevant expertise. - Czar

Both have their use cases, don't they? There are times you find that article that nails what you wanted. Expertise finds things you are missing on your own, or don't even know to ask. Subscribing to someone's lifestream is a form of information discovery via expertise. Search/social bookmarking are forms of finding relevant content. - Hutch Carpenter

The most valuable authority/guide would be an advanced artificial intelligence technology which can reason creatively about all the best current content available in any given domain. Because of information overload, many human experts are behind the curve in their own fields of expertise -- they can't keep up with the flood of new developments and research. A global superintelligence would be the best authority in every domain under the sun simultaneously. - Sean McBride

+1 Rob - Shey, Jamaican of FF

+2 Rob - Hutch Carpenter

+3 Rob - AJ Kohn

Which content? What is currently the best content on X according to the world's best experts on X? Citation analysis, which is a primitive form of AI, can help answer the question. Who are the best experts? Again, citation analysis to the rescue. Data mining will lead one to the best content and best experts simultaneously. Presumably the best content was produced by the best experts. - Sean McBride

+4 Rob - Mike Fruchter

Depends on many things: how much research-time (& -cash) do you have? How much do you need to know? Are you trying to build something or write something? Etc. - Vincent van Wylick

Sean - those are good points. We Like, bookmark, share out here in social media. One could argue that expert citations are a far more rigorous form of that. - Hutch Carpenter

find the expertise and the content will likely follow - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Hutch -- Eugene Garfield of ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) has been way ahead of the curve in developing advanced citation analysis and bibliometric techniques. In some ways, Google evolved from this research matrix: Google PageRank = global impact factor as measured by cites. I tend to see citation analysis as a subset of data mining and data mining as a subset of artificial intelligence. Friendfeed should push hard in this direction, imo -- it has barely begun to fully explore and exploit the strategic statistical patterns in its dataset. - Sean McBride

"Citation analysis was pioneered by Eugene Garfield, who started ISI in 1958. Google's PageRank algorithm uses many of the same techniques involved in citation analysis to get a sense of the most important pages on the web, based on the number and quality of links pointing to them. ISIHighlyCited.com plans to include the top 250 preeminent individual researchers in 21 subject categories who have demonstrated great influence in their field as measured by citations to their work." http://tinyurl.com/5pbh3h - Sean McBride

+1 Mark Trapp. Even for relative experts, I still think that knowing other relative experts is important because it is easier to discuss ideas with people rather than just reading content that is most likely just one-way communication. - Rishabh Mishra (p248)

possible248 - Texts are static and inert; human experts are creative and dynamically reconfigurable in real time. Human experts understand the semantics and social context behind fixed words and symbols. Human experts know how to paraphrase, summarize, find hidden connections, draw inferences, adjust their communications to the level of understanding of unique individuals, etc. - Sean McBride

Agree possible248 - Mark has got it right. Determining those experts does take some time. - Hutch Carpenter

Thats the differnce between reading a textbook and going to the lecture. - Roberto Bonini

its not black or white. it is usually an admixture of content and expertise. however, in the modern era of enhanced infor sharing and technological advances, to be called an "expert" becomes easier by day. Academics and scientists before were a class beyond current ones and the scales keep on droppign. same with experts in every discipline. I would rely on experts but i would give more weight to content. - Hayk H.

+2 for Mark. The team of experts is a good idea for several reasons. Someone will always come up with an answer. Another good reason is that experts will continuously challenge other experts. That "challenging" forces all of the experts to think more than they "normally" do, and possibly come up with an even better answer. - Rob Diana

So, now that I am a level 4 wizard, do I get anything special? - Rob Diana

To me, it's both. I don't think it's possible to be fascinating and relevant ALL of the time. but I think most folks (esp. the ones I meet here) can bat at least .500 for "relevant" content. - Helen Sventitsky

Can I choose 'both'? Gotta keep a balanced portfolio of knowledge resources. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Finding relevant information. Finding people with expertise is only useful if they are willing to share their expertise, and my mind control device is not completed yet. - DGentry

People are content, yo. - Greg Schwartz

One of the exciting aspects of tools like FriendFeed is the ease and frequency of cross-pollinating experts from various disciplines (I swear there are FF'ers that are experts outside of social media and gadgets). This melting pot of ideas should proliferate innovation outside the box. - Amir Gharaat