It sounds like something from a futuristic TV thriller: American spies thwarting the next 9/11-style terrorist plot through a shared online community modeled after Wikipedia, the free and highly popular user-created, web-based encyclopedia. But Anthony D. Williams, co-author of the new book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, recently told a Wharton audience that this online community of spies already exists, and is on the case. ‘The national intelligence community took a lot of criticism after 9/11 for failing to connect the dots,’ said Williams, who delivered the keynote speech at the 9th Annual Emerging Technologies Update Day, sponsored by Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation. ‘And so now the national intelligence community is saying, ‘Well, could we learn something from Wikipedia, and could we share knowledge in a cross-organizational way?’ And in fact we have IntelliPedia, which is actually a real project. Of course, it’s not open to the public.’ IntelliPedia may be sealed off, but other web sites — community-oriented and built around user-generated content — are not only open to all but thriving, from the public photography site Flickr.com to Craigslist.org, the mostly free classified-ad site that now draws more traffic than mainstream […]