Crowdsourcing: Getty Images and Traditional Market Feedback
1. How would you define crowdsourcing? I would define crowdsourcing as a new and innovative way of outsourcing, whereas a job that used to be performed by employees is outsourced to a large, undefined group of people, whereby the medium used generally the internet is. Crowdsourcing is different from an ordinary outsourcing since it is a task / problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than to a specific, named group or to a traditional employee or supplier. Crowdsourcing further is a mix of the terms "crowd" and "outsourcing," first coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article "The Rise of Crowdsourcing", which kind of makes the meaning behind it very clear.
2. Why does crowdsourcing require a large, "undefined community" to work? Why not a small, defined community of passionate people who you know and have worked with before or with whom you are already friends (think Facebook communities which are smaller, and defined)? As the article states, crowds are generally wise when 1. There are many decision makers, who make their decision independent of one and another 2. Participants come from diverse backgrounds 3. Where there is a mechanism that can aggregate opinions to produce a single outcome 4. The participants do not talk with one another or influence each other prior to making a decision
A large, undefined community fulfills these criteria. The participants of these communities most likely are from diverse backgrounds (#2), don’t influence each other or talk with each other prior to decision making (#4) and make their decisions independent from one and another (#1). Defined communities of passionate people who know each other from work or who are friends which each other don’t fulfill the above mentioned criteria. They probably have a similar background (work, interests,…) and might not make their decisions independent from each other, as they probably talk about it, discuss the ‘issue’ and most likely even influence each
2. Why does crowdsourcing require a large, "undefined community" to work? Why not a small, defined community of passionate people who you know and have worked with before or with whom you are already friends (think Facebook communities which are smaller, and defined)? As the article states, crowds are generally wise when 1. There are many decision makers, who make their decision independent of one and another 2. Participants come from diverse backgrounds 3. Where there is a mechanism that can aggregate opinions to produce a single outcome 4. The participants do not talk with one another or influence each other prior to making a decision
A large, undefined community fulfills these criteria. The participants of these communities most likely are from diverse backgrounds (#2), don’t influence each other or talk with each other prior to decision making (#4) and make their decisions independent from one and another (#1). Defined communities of passionate people who know each other from work or who are friends which each other don’t fulfill the above mentioned criteria. They probably have a similar background (work, interests,…) and might not make their decisions independent from each other, as they probably talk about it, discuss the ‘issue’ and most likely even influence each