More thoughts on sell-side research

As the British would say, I seem to have set the cat amongst the pigeons with my recent post on sell-side analysts vs. bloggers. Many thanks to those who have linked to it, discussed, rebutted, etc. This is what it's all about, and I have learned much in the process. It is also gratifying to me personally, and has made counting the hours remaining before my incineration much more bearable!

One very bright reader of my humble bloglet has raised the following loose idea, so I'll put it out there and let someone else knock it out of the park, point to three existing examples I have missed, or tell me why it wouldn't work. (Apologies, I would allow comments on the site, but I don't want to deal with blam - that's blog spam. I am more than happy to receive direct emails however.)

Consider this - a number of like-minded people on the buy-side establish a communal workspace, a kind of closed Wiki (or closed and very highly moderated Slashdot), where users would initially be validated, but anonymous from that point onward, unless they wished otherwise. I could also see an adapted version of something like Gibeo being an interesting tool in this context. I guess trust issues make this a difficult one (how to prevent willful disinformation from polluting the system). However it might operate, this is a really scary thought for the sell side if anyone is brave enough to run with it.