Crowdsourcing.

What is crowdsourcing? "Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem-solving and production model...Some examples include Threadless, iStockphoto, InnoCentive, the Goldcorp Challenge, and user-generated advertising contests" (Brabham 1). Many of us have been introduced to at least a couple different examples of crowdsourcing, but have most likely never thought much of it. Until reading this article I never thought of what it really was--a cheap and easy way for a company to have the public solve their problems while still making a gigantic profit. When you see the Doritos Crash the Superbowl commercial contest, you think it is just a fun way to have people make their own commercials. This saves Doritos time and money. You can also look at something like Threadless--they do not have to design any shirts AND they know that people will like the shirts and buy them because they have so many people rating each tshirt. This idea is a phenomenal one, especially from a business standpoint. There are a few things that especially spark my interest though; how the public knows the answers, motivation, and future effects this could have.

Okay, so the question of how the public knows the answers to the questions that companies propose, is also known as "Crowd Wisdom". The majority of the people who solve the problems are not experts in the topic. How is it that they can solve a problem that an expert has spent so much time trying to solve and still cannot? A great example of this is InnoCentive, a place where R&D questions are posted. These are generally science related questions, that people have been working to answer for a couple years+ and cannot figure out. When released to the public through InnoCentive, it could be a physics related question but the person who figures it out will most likely not be a physics specialist. They could be a biologist, chemist, etc. In Brabhams article, he quotes, "The web provides a perfect technology capable of aggregating millions of disparate, independent ideas in the way markets and intelligent voting systems do, without the dangers of ‘too much communication’ and compromise (Surowiecki, 2004: xix)." When people work in groups, there can be too much communication, compromise, and loss of a simple answer. Sometimes working with a team of experts, people will get too critical and complicate a problem, so someone looking from the outside can have a more clear perspective on it. This idea is hard for me to understand completely, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It is a miraculous idea and it is amazing that it actually works.

Second is motivation. Why do these people solve these problems that are worth millions for a just a very small fraction of the money? What is motivating them to do this? Even though you clearly do not make the money you deserve, the majority of people do this to make money. It is often a side "job" and just to get extra money somehow. Most people probably also see this as a hobby and something fun to do. Personally, when I read about Threadless I was immediately intrigued. I explored the website and made an account right away. I know that you don't make a lot of money, but it is still that chance that you could make some extra money. I love art and design so it is something I would like to do as a hobby to design shirts and see if people like them and if they are cool then potentially make money. It also reminds me of when Cha-Cha started getting bigger. It is not crowdsourcing, but while working for Cha-Cha you only make between 10 and 20 cents per answer you give. This is hardly anything, but when I heard about it I wanted to work for them so bad because I am always on my computer and I thought I might as well make some money while I am just sitting at my comp. For people who have a desk job, and are getting paid to do nothing at their computer, this is an excellent way to stay busy and make even more money. If you answered questions all day long, you could definitely make some extra spending cash. So even though profit from iStockphoto, Threadless, etc. may not be enough to live from, they are great for people who already have jobs and who would enjoy doing the extra work. Other main reasons, are for portfolios, reputaions, and building skills. It is good practice to start working with crowdsourcing to gain experience which is also why people turn to sites like these.

My third concern, to go with my theme, is how will this affect people in the future? Since you can go on Threadless and design shirts straight out of high school and make money, or take random pictures on iStockphoto that happen to be popular, you could make tons of money potentially. This is diminishing the value of higher education. It worries me to think that people feel like with current technology they do not need a college degree anymore. It is possible to make money from these sites, especially if you had the idea to create the site, but the chances of that happening are pretty rare. Most people do not make enough money to live from. I see this having a very strong impact on future generations, especially with technology improving all the time. The next generation will have much different values on different things than what most of us today value. It is a scary thought to me.

An example of crowdsourcing would be that recently Facebook announced that anything put onto Facebook would become the property of Facebook. This is definitely something that bothered a lot of people and outraged the public. For people who are pursuing something like photography, this would be awful because they want to be able to say it is their work, but then Facebook could also claim that it is their property. In order to solve this problem Facebook decided to make their process more involved with the public's opinion. They are asking for feedback on the policies they make and are making it more of a democratic style. You can vote on what you like and don't like about the policies they make and be a part of the decision making, essentially. This is a form of crowdsourcing--they have a problem, are opening it to the public, and then using the best answer to solve the problem.

In conclusion, crowdsourcing is an amazing business model with great potential in my opinion. I think Brabham's idea of using crowdsourcing for non-profit fundraising and donor involvements, etc. are great. However, I am confused on the difference between non-profit crowdsourcing and open sourcing--to me the only difference is that open source involves mainly/only software problems rather than design, education, etc. Crowdsourcing is a model that I can see having a much larger effect in the future.