Ask HN: Does crowd-investing make sense?

I'm interested in the idea of an exchange-traded fund that is directly controlled by its shareholders (ETF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund). Existing ETFs are either passively managed and track a stock index (Dow, S&P, etc) or are actively managed and generally don't beat the market. Does a publicly-traded investment fund that relies on its shareholders for all transactional decisions make sense? For companies that are already listed on national and international stock exchanges, the wisdom of the crowds may be of real value. I think the crowd could be particularly effective at spotting high-growth public companies in the US and abroad. My hypothesis is that a large group of retail investors collaborating on company research and stock selection can outperform the market and most professional investment managers. I'm curious about anyone's thoughts on this idea.