One of the fascinating things about crowdsourcing is discovering the various twists on the concept that entrepreneurs have come up with. I’m absolutely sure that 2011 will throw up some innovative new business models and some very clever start-ups, but even in the existing crowdsourcing palette there are some very neat ideas out there, some of which have been established for a number of years. It’s fun to do a little surfing and see if you can stumble upon the next Quirky.com.
Services Markets
Search Engine Marketing Crowdsourcer Trada Raises $5.75 Million
One of the companies we have come across since we created the Beta version of our Crowdsourcing Landscape is Trada, which crowdsources search engine marketing expertise.
Now Google Ventures has , legitimizing the business for many potential customers, and showing the power of specialist crowdsourcing ventures.
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Libraries and Archiving – with the use of Crowdsourcing
I came across a very interesting article written by Fiona Sullivan titled Crowdsourcing for Libraries and Archives on the Archives Outside Blog. Fiona’s article shares with us some really useful tips for outsourcing your archive projects, pointing to 7 really interesting facts and insights into using crowdsourcing, with 3 of them being in the field of libraries and archives.
Here are some of the things that I found most interesting:
Phil Sim, CEO, MediaConnect – An Outsource Experience
Phil Sim, CEO of Media Connect has been outsourcing projects for over 10 years.
He shares with the attendees at The Insight Exchanges “Getting Results from Crowdsourcing event” his experiences and knowledge on using multiple crowdsourcing platforms to run his very successful small business.
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Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com – Outsource Everything
Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com presents “Outsource Everything” at the Getting Results from Crowdsourcing event on 31 May 2010.
Matt explains that you can create a multimillion dollar empire overnight on a shoestring budget, using sites like his. He shows us examples of the types of things you can outsource, how his company came to be and why Crowdsourcing is the next big thing.
Yvonne Adele, Chief Idealist of Ideas Culture
Yvonne Adele, Chief Idealist of Ideas Culture explains how she created her company “Ideas while you sleep” – practically overnight.
Sharing with us how she uses her own unique brainstorming techniques to generate ideas from around the globe…. literally while you sleep… Yvonne spoke at The Insight Exchanges Getting Results from Crowdsourcing event Check out the full presentation video:
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Why You Should Make Crowdsourced Tasks Meaningful
One of the ideas at the heart of effective crowdsourcing is understanding the non-financial incentives that attract and inspire workers. particularly the most the talented ones. Research from traditional workplaces shows that providing context to a task so that people understand why it is being done is a strong motivator. That is even more the case with crowdsourcing, where workers often have no idea of how their work will be used. Now some very interesting research gives insight into how meaning impacts workers on the crowdsourcing site Mechanical Turk.
Online Freelancing and the Future of Work Become Mainstream Topics
The Economist this week addresses the wonderful world of online freelancing and crowdsourcing, under the rubrik Work in the digital age. The full article is well worth a read.
The article points to the potential for online freelancing and piecework to account for a substantial part of global labor. While The Economist has touched on the issue before, this is now something that is a significant business issue which is going to start attracting a lot more coverage. The Economist notes:
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