Forecasts are generally improved by having independent sources of information. Patrick McSharry et al have shown that twitter feeds can improve forecasts of box office revenue. In addition,public-private partnerships like the Global Earthquake Model are using crowd-sourcing to collect data to assess hazard, exposure and vulnerability when constructing catastrophe models.
There are also many reasons to develop index-based insurance products based on crowd-sourcing and this could have large potential (McSharry, The Role of Scientific Modelling and Insurance in Providing Innovative Solutions forManaging the Risk of Natural Disasters, In PreventingDisaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change”, Editor Zinta Zommers,Springer, New York ,2014).