Do you Crowdsource?

Matthew Cordasco Co-founder and Head of Product

July 15th, 2013

Hello fellow FD's,

We are working hard on our product-market fit, and would love some insight from folks:

1) Does your organization currently Crowdsource?

2) What types of tasks do you crowdsource?

3) What crowdsourcing platforms are your favorite? (ex: odesk, elance, guru, etc.)

4) Are there any pain points you would like solved?

We are obviously building a crowdsourcing solution. If you have any other comments on this topic, we are all ears.

Regards,

Matthew

MyCrowd, Inc.

Jason DeMorrow Senior Software Engineer at iSpot.tv, Inc.

July 16th, 2013

yes
forums (crowd-sourced customer service)
we roll our own, for better or for worse (for better probably, since we like owning the data and re-using the services in other applications)
Moderation is a pain point, into which we're just now introducing some automation. Gamification is a problem we (and no one else IMO) has solved adequately yet.

Matthew Cordasco Co-founder and Head of Product

July 15th, 2013

Thanks for the feedback, Mohammad.

I am smiling because it is definitely a sign of an early market when people define it differently. I was recently on a crowdsourcing panel and the debate was lively around what it was and what is was not.

Since Jeff Howe first coined the term in 2006, there has been an explosion in interpreting this space. The Journal of Information Science recently counted 40 different definitions.

Here is my take, and I don’t particularly think wikipedia is doing it justice right now, but here are some components the definition should include:

- Involves a top-down objective.

- Solved by bottom up talent.

- With locus of control being BETWEEN the parties For mutual benefit, meaning each party receives something.

- Oh, and I think it needs to include the Internet.

(If this control shifts too much in one direction of the other, it becomes either market research or peer-production.)

What you are referring to is peer-production. Odesk, Elance, Guru, CrowdFlower, etc. all consider themselves part of crowdsourcing, and are quoted in the recently published Economist article as participating in the $1B crowdsourcing industry.

Regards,

Matthew

Rob Phillips iOS & web engineer, product designer, startup enthusiast/advisor

July 17th, 2013

Not sure why my prior posts won't show up, so I'm posting this again.

I use oDesk for a

Mohammad Forouzani CEO at Forecast.net

July 15th, 2013

Im not sure if my definition of crowdsource is correct, but I would consider odesk, elance etc. "outsourcing" not "crowdsourcing".

AFAIK, crowdsourcing is usually when something is done without it being paid for. For example Linkedin crowdsources their company database - by entering what company you work for, and the companies you worked at in the past, you are actually building up Linkedin's database of companies... but Linkedin isnt paying for it.

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