Weblogsky: Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing

Bruce Sterling posts Jeff Howe's comments on the brief history of the "crowdsourcing" meme, with comments. [Link]

Like Jeff Howe, I also believe that "crowdsourcing" is indeed a useful neologism. That's because "crowdsourcing" names part of the same elephant as "Long Tail," "Invisible Tail," "collective intelligence," "folksonomy," "search and publish/publish and search," "attention economy," "collaborative web filters," "architecture of participation" and "commons-based peer-production," among other such. New terminology is boiling out of this realm of activity practically every day now. It is being created because there is a pressing and demonstrable need for it.)

I could spend all day trying to explain how Jeff Howe's "crowdsourcing" has a different structure than "commons-based peer production." This would be no mere academic hairsplitting, either. You see, it's like mapping the mountains and finding two seams of gold. In one, a bunch of hairy-bearded *NIX prospectors are standing hip-deep in the water panning for lumps of gold, while in the other, Three Initial Corporation is data-mining vast spoilage heaps of almost-useless rubble.... I could go on. Others most certainly will.

jon posted this at 10:43 AM
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