Up until a week ago I had no idea what crowdsourcing was, I had never heard the term on a regular basis and had no idea what it meant. To my surprise, I am pretty alone in that category. Crowdsourcing is everywhere, you just have to know where to look.
Surfing on the internet I ran across a website with a list of the "10 Ways that Crowdsourcing is Taking Over the World." This article lists websites that use crowdsourcing in astonishing ways from playing a protein folding game on Fold.it that could potenially cure diseases to GalaxyZoo a website that works to identify new galaxies. There is no limit to what crowdsourcing can do in our modern world of technology.
There is a website completely devoted to compiling all of the new and exciting ways that crowdsourcing is being used. Whether it be to help design a building or spread love for Valentine's Day; crowdsourcing.org has it all! This website provides resources and criticisms for crowdsourcing ideas that will not work. Not only is crowdsourcing a way to spread ideas but it is also becoming a platform for sharing laborous tasks. Cloud Labor is the new way to split up tasks and get them done cheaply by many people rather than at a high price by one person. This virtual labor pool could be the new career for people to go into, espescially when many large companies are laying off workers in order to utilitze cloud labor.
Maybe we need to start thinking about the next generation of workers, and whether they will even need to leave the comfort of their home to go to work. Crowdsourcing may be a good or bad thing at the end of the day. Personally, I want to learn my trade and have a career rather than have a packet of work sent to me over email from a random company I don't know.
Great find on the "10 ways that crowdsourcing is taking over the world". I had not heard of any of these websites before. I enjoyed reading about BioMapping. It could potentially have a positive role in neighborhood planning!
ReplyDeleteGreat article about a very exciting topic. I especially liked the two sample websites you found: Fold.it and GalaxyZoo. They really illustrate the wide range of applications that crowdsourcing can be used for, and the real potential this technique has. Curing diseases, finding Galaxies, and toppling dictatorships (example: protests in Egypt) are just the tip of this public participation iceburg. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteSeems to be a problem with the URL format in the text?
ReplyDelete