A Visual Explanation of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is all around us, used by brands we use everyday. But what is crowdsourcing and how are companies taking advantage of the powerful collaborative abilities of A VISUAL EXPLANATION OF the internet? We take a visual look at Crowdsourcing crowdsourcing today, and how it could change our lives in the future. What is crowdsourcing? CROWD + OUTSOURCING Coined by journalist Jeff Howe in the 2006 Wired article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing" FANSOURCING CROWDCASTING Though it goes by many names, crowdsourcing is simply the practice of companies making an open call to a broad community to OPEN SOURCING CROWDFUNDING MASS COLLABORATION WIKINOMICS solve a problem, either through competition or collaboration. A company has a problem that they may have previously hired an employee or contractor to perform. Instead they involve a 'crowd' to help them solve their problem. By getting a larger group of people to work on their problem, they hope to get a better solution. What companies use crowdsourcing? "Human intelligence tasks" Entertainment targeting AMAZON Photography iStock Photo.com NETFLIX "Human intelligence tasks Information aggregation Logo and marketing design MICROWORKERS R&D WIKIPEDIA CROWD SPRING DuPont How is crowdsourcing used? THREADLESS FOLD.IT Arguably the most popular crowdsourced business, Users play a protein folding game which helps scientists discover new ways to fight consumers vote on t-shirt designs submitted by freelance designers, who, if their design is chosen, are rewarded with cash and the t-shirt is diseases. produced. CROWDSPRING MOB4HIRE Companies and business owners can post a logo design need or a copywriting assignment and let designers make submissions. The average Mobile application and device developers are able to beta test products in the crowd. They currently list over 1,10o developers in 86 countries and more than 45,000 testers on project gets 68 submissions and costs the company $200. 350 carriers in 150 countries. MECHANICAL TURK WE ARE HUNTED MTurk is a marketplace for crowdsourcing simple projects that computers can't do, such as identifying items in a photograph of skimming real-estate listings for unquantifiable data. Ranks the most popular songs on the internet based on social network activity, blogs, peer-to-peer file sharing, etc. There is currently a group attempting to purchase Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewing Pabst Blue Ribbon Company using crowdsourcing. People can pledge money towards the $300 million asking price and receive % ownership of the BEER company. How big is crowdsourcing? Though statistics relating to the paid crowdsourcing marketing are rare, here is a sampling of 10 companies who have published select statistics. It is likely there are workers who overlap between companies. REGISTERED WORKERS GROSS PAYMENTS TO WORKERS Elance LiveOps/LiveWork RentACoder Guru oDesk Amazon Mechanical Turk GetAFreelancer TopCoder 99designs Innocentive 20K 40K 60K 80K 100K O $SOM $10OM $1SOM $200M $250M It's estimated roughly 1 million WORKERS HAVE BEEN PAID BETWEEN $1-2 BILLION for crowds ourcing projects Arguably the most famous use of crowdsourcing is the NETFLIX OFFERED THE NETFLIX s1 MILLION PRIZE to anyone who could design an algorithm that out-performed Netflix's recommendation algorithm What are the benefits? Crowdsourcing connects businesses to their audiences and consumers. The solution arrived at or product developed could be better than it would have if done through traditional outsourcing, as solutioms and products are developed through collaboration and competition. Often the product, as it has arisen through the crowd, will be in effect market tested as it is being developed. Crowdsourcing can provide opportunities for unknown or emerging innovators, designers, thinkers, etc. to become leaders in the marketplace. Crowdsourcing, because it depends entirely on the freelancing community, keeps 11 overhead and administration costs at a minimum for small companies. What are the downsides? Often crowdsourced There is little guarantee that the resulting end product will be of sufficient efficacy or quality. projects result in little or no pay for participants, which can lead to difficulties in project or company sustainability and consumer loyalty. Crowdsourcing drives down the market value of once high-priced professional products and services, allowing for amateurs to compete in the market but closing out trained professionals. INFOGRAPHIC CREATED BY O Biz Media.com