More Developments and Examples of Crowdsourcing
Following on from my last post that looked into recent developments in crowdsourcing – here are some more reports and examples of crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourced Journalism – Imagining how the media will be reborn in 2022, trend watcher and futurist Ross Dawson has predicted that news investigation and reporting will be done by ‘hordes of amateurs overseen by professionals’.
Organising Aid Relief - Techcrunch have investigated case studies in crowdsourcing disaster relief. By ‘placing reporting power in the hands of people who might otherwise be victims’ technology is allowing armchair disaster relief experts to work with people on the ground to help build important communication channels.
In Haiti, mass collaboration enabled OpenStreetMap.com to provide a better map of the disaster zone than the US department of defense (and at a fraction of the cost). In any area where modern communication channels exist, there is the possibility for this form of organisation.
New Opensource Software - All Our Ideas is a new free platform that has been designed to harness the power of crowdsourcing. It cleverly combines a structured questionnaire with the added ability for a respondent to suggest new ideas. As crowdsourcing in the digital age is all about combining the benefits of quantitative research with the benefits of qualitative research, I reckon this software will be the first example of many new platforms to come.
Crowdsourcing the Truth - Truth Squad was an experiment that tested whether crowdsourcing can be used to fact-check claims made in the media and by politicians. After a discussion and voting by contributors to a website, the quote or claim in question is assessed by a panel of judges who then weigh up the evidence and make a verdict. Despite low publicity the experiment was a success and showed the crowds eagerness to put claims to the test. I expect (and hope) this to become a major new movement within crowdsourcing.
Collecting Sounds – Asking “What does Britain sound like?” the British Library is using crowdsourcing to collect and catalogue sound samples from around the country. Working with social sound recording service Audioboo, the library is asking people to record the sound of traffic, town centres or anything else around where they live. It is anticipated that over 10,000 samples will be created to generate a sound map of Britain. More details here.
Over halfway through a year which has seen the biggest rise in crowdsourcing solutions, it seems that the trend is set to continue. What seems to be the most important observation to make is the increasing use of methods to curate, filter or control the input from the crowd.
