Crowdsourcing is a new phenomenon that is gaining more and more presence on the Internet. It emerged as a way to outsource jobs, but it has evolved and is already a business model on which many companies rely. Here we do a survey of its main characteristics.
What does crowdsourcing mean?
The word crowdsourcing is recent and was created by Jeff Howe, editor of the technology magazine Wired.
Howe is currently considered the world's largest benchmark on the subject, due to the success of his book "The rise of crowdsourcing" (The rise of crowdsourcing). Howe is also the owner of the crowdsourcing.com domain.
Etymologically, the term crowdsourcing comes from crowd (crowd) and sourcing (supply). This can already give us clues about its meaning, because crowdsourcing is nothing more than using the force of crowds as providers of work, generally intellectual.
The strength of the crowds
The Internet has generated a curious phenomenon, and it is the possibility of creating groups and communities around any topic of interest. These crowds are not crowds in the usual sense of the word, since people are not physically together, but they are communicated and can work together.
The most famous example of crowdsourcing is Wikipedia, a virtual encyclopedia constantly written and updated by its readers. The fact that Wikipedia is developed in this way gives it a comparative advantage over any other traditional encyclopedia: its growth is rapid and exponential.
The strength of the crowds is that it is enough for each member to make a minimal contribution for the overall result to be surprising. This is how Wikipedia works and this is how Google's anti-SPAM service called ReCaptcha works, by which each Internet user digitizes two words from a book each time he is verified as a real user.
Crowdsourcing and open source
In one of his definitions Jeff Howe explains crowdsourcing as “the application of open source in fields outside of software”. This is because open source software differs from traditional software in that it is developed collaboratively by a community, which has access to study and modify the source code.
The most popular case of open source software is the Linux operating system, which is completely free and, unlike Windows, can be completely modified by any user with programming knowledge.
Crowdsourcing and business practices
Companies have found in crowdsourcing an effective way to outsource work that was once done by employees or other companies. In fact, the term crowdsourcing is closely related to outsourcing (outsourcing). Among the important companies that have adopted this model for the solution of a specific problem can be found Sony, MasterCard, Converse and Chevrolet, among many others. Important journalistic media such as The Times or USA Today have also implemented crowdsourcing, in this case for the writing of articles.
The novelty is that in a recent time crowdsourcing went from being a business practice to becoming a business model. There are platforms entirely developed from this idea: in Europe and the United States you can find websites specialized in the most diverse activities. In Spanish-speaking there was no precedent until the creation of Guerra Creativa, a community that offers graphic design solutions.
The great merit of business crowdsourcing probably lies in the fact that it facilitates and speeds up the establishment of professional relationships internationally.
