Society | DOI: 10.1145/1897816.1897824
Samuel Greengard
following the crowd
Crowdsourcing is based on a simple but powerful concept:
Virtually anyone has the potential to plug in valuable information.

IF one Thing is entirely clear about the Internet it’s that to- day’s ability to democratize in- formation and tasks is nothing short of remarkable. Increasingly, groups aggregate knowledge through wikis, track incidents during a political uprising or emergency through text messages and email, and create instant teams and organizations in order to solve tasks and accomplish work.

“There’s an ability to mobilize in-
formation and groups quickly and ef-
fectively,” observes Peter Lee, former
director of the Transformational Con-
vergence Technology Office at the U.S.
Defense Advanced Research Project
Agency (DARPA) and currently director
of research at Microsoft. “This capa-
bility is fundamentally changing so-
ciety—and the way we approach com-
mon tasks and problems.”
At the heart of this equation is
crowdsourcing. The concept revolves
around large groups of people or a
community handling tasks that have
traditionally been associated with a
specialist or small group of experts.
Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing:
Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving
the Future of Business, coined the term
in 2006, citing technology as a way to
draw a greater number of people into
large tasks while tapping knowledge
and expertise that previously flew un-
der the radar.

Over the last few years, crowdsourcing has emerged as a viable solution for businesses, relief agencies, researchers, politicians, the military, and others looking to grab bits and bytes of information in a nontraditional and decidedly more chaotic way. Howe describes it as a way for many to do the work and tasks previously handled by a few. Crowdsourcing has social, economic, cultural, business, and political implications, he says.

Crowdsourcing is gaining momen-
tum across a wide swath of industries
and organizations. However, the con-
cept isn’t without controversy. Some
organizations have found that crowd-
sourcing is expensive and unreliable.
Even those that have used it successful-
ly have found that bad data and faulty
observations sometimes get tossed
into the mix. The old axiom “you get
what you pay for” can become glaringly
apparent when anyone can join the fray.

Groupthink unleashed

Crowdsourcing is based on a simple
but powerful concept: Virtually anyone
has the potential to plug in valuable
information. As Howe noted in Crowd-
sourcing, “Technological advances
in everything from product design
software to digital video cameras are
breaking down the cost barriers that
once separated amateurs from profes-
sionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and
dabblers suddenly have a market for
their efforts [as organizations] tap the
latent talent of the crowd.”
The roots of crowdsourcing extend
back to the 1990s. That’s when indi-
viduals and institutions began vol-
unteering spare computing cycles to
help solve major research projects in-
volving everything from mathematical
formulas to medical problems. This
community-based approach extended
to wikis and other collaboration tools
in the age of the Internet. In today’s
Web 2.0 world, peer-to-peer and col-
laboration-based platforms play an
increasingly important role in an array
of fields.

ushahidi enables volunteers to map everything from natural disasters to political turmoil.

PHO TOGRAPH BY ERIK HERSMAN