[This is a re-post
(originally posted on 2 Jan 2013) with minor edits, deleted the original post
by mistake.]
But who owns these
cooperative efforts and the data? The
organisation do not, it is the crowd.
Platforms like Yahoo only borrow it.
It is a ginger relationship. If
respect is not given, the crowds will depart.
The sites must consciously not violate the community norms. Internet culture plays a part. They must of course also watch their
competitors. Data must remain fresh to
have value, like seafood, so if the consumer moves away, it becomes
untenable. Trusts must be maintained. Friendster and Myspace, the earlier social
media giants suffered this. If attempt
is made to control too much of it, it risk turning away the crowd that makes
the value. The open culture must be
respected.
A few examples of
applying crowdsourcing to traditional businesses:
The beauty of
crowdsourcing is that it reduces risk significantly. Take My Major Company (MMC), an online record label that uses crowdfunding
to finance its acts (it’s already profitable).
MMC posts demos and videos
of 10 artists on its website and users are invited to invest anywhere from £10
to £1,000 in the ones they most enjoy or think are most likely to score a
hit, Once an act reaches £100,000, the
financing is locked in and the money is used to pay for recording and possibly
a tour. Net revenue is split among the
investors, the artist and MMC.
“Amazon even
offered $5 off to customers who scanned a bar code in a store – so Amazon could
offer a lower price on the same item” (Time, 9 Jan 2012).
If a retailer wants to find out a competitor pricing, isn’t this a great
way of doing so? Instead of paying a
team to go physically to stores, you now crowdsource your customers who are
even paid (vouchers) to spend further in your store!
Most local travel
agencies are not taking advantage of crowdsourcing or other tools to improve
the saleability of the hotels rooms, restaurants, packages or to cater to local
culture vulture tourists. User
experience on their websites is basic and they could really improve their
marketability by developing a more conducive buying experience. YouTube, the second most searched site on the
internet, is a service not fully or properly utilised for marketing. What is better than actually seeing a video
of the surrounds for a more authentic experience when researching for a holiday
destination? Or read and view what
fellow travellers have experienced. They
would trust this more, rather than slick marketing messages. YouTube is mostly crowdsourced so nudge nudge
can be used to encouraged locals to contribute.
The principle of nudge nudge is aligned to the internet operating
model. I use YouTube to browse through a
location to get a feel of the local culture, whether the streets look safe, the
street markets and places where the locals go.
The promotional videos I have viewed are conventional, mostly glossy
shots of the popular sites. It feels
controlled. The YouTube generation may
connect better with an open, less formal, down-to-earth facsimile of locales to
add realism. Travel-based websites could
also do with local contacts, crowdsourced citizens obviously, who could act as
informal online friends to provide local information as another example.
In time,
crowdsourcing will become a common tool.
Let’s now use the
print media as further example. While
hyped on its death, it is way overblown and it will be here to stay. As they say, content is king! Content will always be there but its
acquisition, assimilation and presentation will be in a different form. Readership may even increase if one is to
consider not just the newsprint version or its online facsimile. Many youngsters may not read newspaper these
days but they do read forwarded news in Facebook or twitter for example. New forms as long as the revenue model is
synchronised to the foundation is what the stakeholders care about. Crowdsourcing can be used. So is co-creation. The media company could facilitate it by
building tools to make it easy to do this.
Twitter unquestionably brings in the freshest news over wider coverage
by the crowd but a mechanism needs to be in place to authenticate it (more
crowdsourcing and social media can do this).
There are other ways to tap fresh news.
Writers can be crowdsourced directly and indirectly as is content. We know there is a lot of news worthy content
out there, albeit mostly raw, so it is up to us to plug into it and figure out
their use. Short videos, best
exemplified by YouTube can be used more.
Crowds are already phone capturing a lot of live video because they are
like ants, all over the place. No doubt
most are useless but enough are news worthy.
Someday the media industry may figure out how to capture this first hand
like YouTube has done. Certainly instead
of merely incorporating blogs or social media, all content could be integrated
seamlessly into an overall experience.
Take into account how directness, immediacy, peering and crowdsourcing
can do attitude and be mindful of the transition.
One last example
uses gaming as a means to tap crowdsourcing for Science. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) runs a public computer game called Foldit in which competitors try to
fold proteins, one of the most difficult biochemistry impediments to curing
disease. Misfolded proteins lead to
diseases such as mad cow and Alzheimer’s.
Since Foldit launched in May 2008, more than 236,000 gamers have
registered, their contributions helping to decipher the structure of an enzyme
responsible for causing AIDS in rhesus monkeys – the first example of a major
breakthrough in crowdsourced science.
“Innovation” DARPA notes, “benefits when the number and diversity of
people participating goes up.
Besides businesses,
political parties can use crowdsourcing.
So far, they have used websites, blogs and twitter and while there is
feedback, they are mostly a means for outward communication. Crowdsourcing is inward and engaging.
Co-creation a
variation of crowdsourcing, discussed in the next post, is another powerful
tool.
LinkedIn – dr tommi
che
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