Monday, March 21, 2011

the death of crowd sourcing?

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/08/huffington-post-revolution-crowdsourcing-mob/


"Ultimately, crowdsourcing underscores the fallacy of free information: It violates the basic principles upon which our entire economy and culture is based."



This article doesn't really prove anything except that you need to set up a crowd sourcing system correctly.  It should be non-profit, for one thing.  Huffington Post's example is a good one where people contribute for free and others reap the benefits.  This is simply poor design.  The owners not only reap the financial rewards ($315 million!) but control content to a large degree as well.

Also, crowd sourcing should be self-policing but monitored, if that makes sense.  Wikipedia, for example, is open not only to additions, but to corrections.  But above that is a sort of wikipolice who can step into clashes that are not being resolved.

Some sites like digg.com and reddit.com are designed well and simply reward input by having a link upvoted.  I guess these sites are for-profit, but in this case the owners don't control content, the readers do.

No comments: