Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is defined as a means of getting tools and services needed for business from a large group as opposed to the traditional modes that have been established in the past. Crowdsourcing relies heavily on media generated from the online community and has marked a significant shift in the way media is shared, distributed, used, and purchased by businesses.

The article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” shows how the practice of crowdsourcing has affected the media industry. People and groups that are working on projects are now able to obtain photos and videos at vastly cheaper rates than ever before. This is at the expense of many professional photographers and filmmakers who simply cannot compete with the prices offered by stock sites like istockPhoto, Shutterstock, and Dreamstine. Professional photographer, Mark Harmel is someone who has had to adapt to the change in the market his business has gotten less money for even more photographs due to the ease of companies to acquire photos from crowdsourcing options.

Crowdsourcing has also had its affect on the television industry as now t.v. shows are using content from viral videos to fill entire shows. This access to cheap content from the web is sparking major change in the way that television is being consumed. Ratings for shows with material from online content have been growing.

But crowdsourcing is not only affecting the media. Crowdsourcing is also now showing its impact in a range of other areas including the scientific community. One website that illustrates this is InnoCentive which provides scientific researchers with access to a broad range of information and research the same way that iStockphoto has done for images. It truly is a remarkable service as it has the potential to connect scientists more quickly and galvanize innovation in the field.

Crowdsourcing has undeniable benefits when it comes to the sharing of information. People now have access to so much more than ever before. My problem with crowdsourcing is that companies often use it to maximize their profits while not giving people proper compensation. Creatives do not want to be paid in exposure, people who put their time and effort into generating worthy content want to be adequately compensated (WITH MONEY) I also fear that crowdsourcing sometimes lessens the quality of content being used by companies like the New York Times who can definitely afford to pay people a decent amount for the pieces they provide.

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