Smart mobs as generators of big data: collective intelligence at the service of social innovation

Recent decades have seen an increase in the mobilization of the social group that is organized, developed, narrated and coordinated with IT: the smart mob, which uses the new communication media to self-organize. Both because of the quantity of messages generated by such groups and because of the social interactions they produce, smart mobs have become the object of big data studies. Data engineering technology can be used to analyse smart mobs and identify the ideas and knowledge they share. This can favour the reuse of information to increase a group's knowledge and contribute to the development of social innovation. The paper therefore examines the questions that are being asked about the potential and limitations of smart mobs and emphasizes the need for further research on new methods and analysis techniques.