Crowdsourcing: Summer Blackouts ...

Crowdsourcing: A Definition

I like to use two definitions for crowdsourcing:
The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.

August 11, 2006

Summer Blackouts ...

Just a short post to assure my readers that I'm not dead and that, appearances to the contrary, neither is crowdsourcing.com. Suffice to say, I've gained new respect for bloggers who hold down aggressively demanding jobs, raise children and also find some time here and there to write a post. As many of you surely know, a lot's happened in the five weeks since my last post. I had originally hoped to try to summarize some of these events, but at this point that task is a little daunting and, more to the point, unnecessary. Crowdsourcing has grown out of its infancy, and entered an accident-prone toddlerdom. I've realized there's not much for me to do but clap my hands when it takes its first steps, and keep electrical appliances out of its grasp. The concept was always much larger than one journalist, and now the term itself is as well. I couldn't be more pleased.

Posted at 07:37 AM | Permalink