How is crowdsourcing changing the way that companies approach creating content?

When you look at today’s generation, you can see how easy it is talk to everyone all over the world compared to 20 years ago. With the use of social media the world feels so much smaller. With that being said, people can connect to many more people than they would back 20 years ago. With the use of the internet, business and companies use crowdsourcing, and its changing the content that we see dramatically. Crowdsourcing is a function that relies on people for outsourcing tasks. With the use of the internet, it is extremely cheap to communicate with other people, because back in the day it would’ve been extremely hard to gather a bunch of people to do this esp without internet. Now, you can make valuable connections with the person and company for a common goal. This can help content with innovation, problem solving, and being much more efficient. “ All these companies grew up in the Internet age and were designed to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are—they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia—as long as they are connected to the network.”. It is easy for individuals to contribute with ideas or even funds to a project or cause. That’s another approach to crowd sourcing. Another way to look at it, is the government could use crowdsourcing to empower citizens and give a greater voice to the people. It is becoming something that is second nature and almost used everywhere without even realizing it. Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees.

Crowdsourcing is a way for corporations or organizations to obtain information for a project or task from a large audience for free or paid using the internet. The internet has become more popular through the years and it is easily accessible with the touch of a finger. Companies have changed the way that they approach creating content. They have started using the internet to reach a larger audience for cheaper. Companies spend hundreds of dollars for each experimental group they bring in. It is cheaper for them to ask their larger audience and use their opinions for free rather than paying someone for their participation in the project. Timothy B. Lee wrote about the time Charles Murray was only paid $75 for his Op-Ed by the New York Times. Lee argues that the New York Times did not have to pay Murray to use his  Op-Ed, but rather use an Op-Ed submitted by a random individual. Amateur writing seems to be more appealing to the everyday audience. Individuals experience these types of writings constantly like blogs, tweets, and youtube reaction videos. People enjoy the amateur writing rather than the professional writing because it is more relatable. Professional writing is more geared to the facts of the company and their products while amateurs use their own honest opinions to get their point across. The brand Oreo used crowdsourcing to determine how their celebration logo for their 100th anniversary should look. As a result, more people decided to share the Oreos facebook page during that specific campaign. Crowdsourcing is inexpensive to these companies and allows the consumers to feel involved in decisions. In the future, I feel that crowdsourcing will be used by majority of the companies because it is fast, efficient, and the results are instant without having to spend extra money. People like to participate in projects held by companies/ organizations that they like regardless if they are getting a reward.  Claudia Menashe mentions the iStockphoto site where photographs are sold for cheaper. This website allows amateur photographers to be paid a couple of bucks for their photos rather than the professionals being paid hundreds for one picture. Crowdsourcing allows normal people to be apart of a bigger picture for an affordable price.

Photographers started making websites to allow corporate and online users to access free or low priced content. This allowed the beginning of crowdsourcing which created competition to other markets. Instead of creating original content which would be a great expense, people started to find cheaper content online. Facebook, myspace, and youtube are examples of businesses that became profitable because of user-generated content.

Many websites have become billion dollar businesses because it provides users with access to each other’s services. It has become very popular and we now have websites and apps to provide for many different things. It started off as posting our own skits and films. Now, we have cab services provided by other users, such as Uber and Uber Eats; babysitting, services provided by regular people on apps like Urban Sitter, etc. Many of these apps are user-generated content, profiles, and gather information to help others find the services they need. It is also cheaper for companies to use this type of business. They do not have to hire anyone. We provide for ourselves. They consider crowdsourcing as a source of cheap focus groups making market research easier.

In a way, we continuously give marketers free data at all times. We post what we want, what we buy, what we like, etc. Apps like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, these apps show what we spend our money on, or plan to. Now, the difference is that back then only professionals were paid for their time. Amateurs can now receive payment from getting views, likes, etc. This is making it difficult for creative professions to thrive. “One consequence is that the line between professionals and amateurs is blurring. And as the line blurs, the professionals find their once-stable professions turned upside down.” (Mcardle)

I believe this is the future of companies. Many will try to avoid original content unless necessary. This saves money and allows for quicker production. We are seeing everything convert to crowdsourcing before our very own eyes without realizing it.

 To start off crowdsourcing is the practice of involving people or group for a common goal sometimes for innovation, problem solving, or efficiency.  Its more of you do work but would not get fully paid or the credit for it. In the instance of the article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing“. Claudia Menashe needed pictures for a project, instead of hiring a photographer for thousands of dollars she decided to just to use stock photography. Stock photography is term for the publishing industry she was able to purchase about 56 photographs for about a dollar each but if she would have got the pictures through the real person who took them it would have been 4 photographs for 600 dollars. Crowdsourcing is changing the way of companies approaching creative content. The reason is they are practically buying content for much of a cheaper price rather or in other words paying for cheap labor when it should not be that way. In my perspective I think about it in the way as machines replacing humans in factories. A company fires their employees and saves money since a machine can do the job of three. Back to the “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” one issues about crowdsourcing was that the line between professionals and amateurs was blurring. As in many media companies think if they should hire for ethnic professional work  or work people summit on their websites since many would willing do it for free.

Imagine this: you’re a post grad college student that just got hired into an advertisement company. You need to come up with an idea for a project, specifically for a popular animal shelter. You need pictures of dogs and cats, but you’re not a photographer nor do you have the skills to take decent advertisement worthy pictures. You call a guy, he can give you 5 photos for about $600. You’re about to take the deal, when you discover that you can go on a website dedicated to photography where a community of amateur photographers upload various pictures for only a buck a piece.  Why would you spend $600 when all you have to do is spend a few dollars on high quality pictures? This is an example of crowdsourcing. This is a similar situation Claudia Menashe went through when she needed pictures of a hospital project. According to The Rise of Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, crowdsourcing is similar to cheap labor. Before the internet, companies looked beyond The States for cheap labor, now? He says it doesn’t even matter- so long as people have a network connection, cheap labor can still exist. Lee Mayor, in the article Crowdsoufcing to Get Ideas, and Perhaps Save Money by Constance Gutske, states that “Crowdsourcing is fast, cheap and scruffy … especially when you need to move quickly”. Nowadays, our society is so fast paced that it only makes sense companies stay one step ahead of us. When we need something, we need it now- sooner rather than later (and cheap wouldn’t hurt). Crowdsourcing allows that to happen.

According to Investopedia.com, crowdsourcing involves obtaining work, information or opinions from a large group of people who submit their data via the Internet, social media and smartphone apps. An example of crowdsourcing that took place a few years ago that I remembered seeing was with the chip manufacturer Lays. According to tweakyourbiz.com, Lays introduced a ten month long ‘Do Us A Flavor’ crowdsourcing campaign. It encouraged consumers to create their very own flavor of chip and people voted for their favorite. The winner, ‘Cheesy Garlic bread’ contributed to an 8% sales increase in the 3 months following its release. In the article “Crowdsourcing to Get Ideas, and Perhaps Save Money,” an important point was stated which is that “some of the best business ideas are inspired by others, leading more entrepreneurs to tap into other people’s brains — rather than just their pocketbooks — to test new products, set pricing and bring ideas to market faster.” This can be related to the Lays crowdsourcing example because they were able to quickly get new, fresh, interesting and most importantly free ideas for a chip flavor. Without the free help from their customers, the company would have had to spend a lot of money to create different chip flavors, test them out in their factories, and basically take a leap of faith hoping that whatever flavor they developed would be a hit amongst the public. Another important idea that was spoken about in all three articles is that not only do companies get to test new products faster and save money, they also get the opportunity to build customer loyalty. Involving your customers in developing new ideas and helping grow your business makes them feel special and portrays the company as open, welcoming, and customer oriented. Even if the products may not be the best out there, if customers know that they had some role in developing it, they will want to purchase whatever it may be at a higher rate. It was interesting that in the article “The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional,” Charles Murray had a post complaining that the New York Times paid him only $75 for op-ed contributions and he believed that he deserved more money because he is a professional writer. As a result of crowdsourcing, The New York Times could stop paying professionals for op-ed posts and instead get those posts for free from amateurs who are knowledgeable. The career of those who are professionals are in jeopardy because companies are quickly dropping them for regular people that will create new ideas, write posts, or test products for little to no cost. It has become a competition between the professionals and the amateurs and so far, the amateurs seem to be taking the lead. It is understandable why companies would want to save their money by going the crowdsourcing path, just like it’s understandable why Claudia Menashe in the article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” would jump at the opportunity to pay $1 for images instead of $600.

Crowdsourcing have change the ways of how companies can get things or find out opinions of their products. Specifically, companies now use crowdsourcing to get cheap things that they can use, or using fans opinion of what is good, and what is not good. In the text, The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” by Jeff Howe, it says, “He offered the museum a generous discount: $100 to $150 per photograph…  After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. “I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto,” she wrote, “which has images at very affordable prices.” That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto—for about $1 each.iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent. How? By creating a marketplace for the work of amateur photographers—homemakers, students, engineers, dancers. There are now about 22,000 contributors to the site, which charges between $1 and $5 per basic image.” Because of crowdsourcing, Menashe was able to find a cheaper alternative to get the photos she wanted. Instead of paying 600 dollars for 4 photos, she could’ve find a photo that cost 1 dollar each. This help changes the way companies approach creating content, or paying someone to create content for them, because they can use people who only do it for a hobby, or is just starting to do these type of work, and get it for free or for very cheap. A positive in this is the companies can save money, and not have to pay a pro a lot of money when they can get it for free elsewhere, or pay for very little for maybe the same type of photos. A negative is that since they are amateurs, the content may be bad, or worse than what a professional would make for their content. Then again, their are websites and the companies can have people look for the best content in these websites, and use those contents. This help companies out the most, while leaving people who would of made a lot of money from the content they made 20 years ago, out of luck.

Aaron Watkins

Aicha Kone

What was your activity? Please be specific on what you asked the class to do and what you hoped it would accomplish.

The activity Aicha and I created were to speak on the current applications that exists now and what do the participants use it for regularly. We even dove deeper into the social media discussion to discuss our dating experiences through them. Some of the participants actually discussed what they would change about the current dating scene and that lead to our second activity: Creating your own apps. From the groups, from an app that allows specific tasks to finding a particular article of clothing and/or product without using Google or asking a friend to another app that only allows you to have 25 friends to keep you focused on select people. What we accomplished is to have the groups discuss their apps, how much time they use it and what do they use it for then have them create a new innovate app to compete against the current popular ones.

Did you think it was successful?

Yes, it was a success as presenters. This allowed the various groups to speak with one another to discuss what they would do change the way we use social media and even had them create some of the best apps from a small slideshow.

Did it achieve your implied goals?

Yes, we got everyone to contribute to what we presented and have them join into the discussion to elaborate their point of view.

What did you learn from the experience?

What we learned is that people use social media but don’t really socialize as much as they should. People are interested in what they’re in and stick to it, but when new ideas were presented everyone appeared to take an interest in it.

How would you take this project further as a research tool and what results would you hope to achieve?

We would take this farther by incorporating more surveyors into the equation. It feels like the groups took a liking to the topic at hand because it’s intertwined in our everyday lives. Social media is here to stay, we have to keep the people who use it up to date and pitching into how it can used for better.