As opposed to Do it Yourself (DIY).
Want to figure out how to use the huddled masses of the internet to do your job for you?
Crowdsourcing is the answer. It is inevitable in the Web 2.0 world of bringing people together. Below is a list of 14 online tools that harness the talents of groups to help you produce a product, concept, business. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a nice start that we plan to build on.
Twitter - First on the list is actually the tool I use to put together a lot of my lists when I need the input of others. If you have a knowledgeable network, throwing a question out to the Twitter community can return quick and amazing responses.
Idea Crossing - Idea Crossing seems to be targeting the same corporate idea vaccum as Kluster Labs. Providing a better system for corporate America to be able to harness their hidden creative talent through an online democratically integrated process.
“Idea Crossing’s DESIGN, PRODUCE, PLAY process streamlines the complexities of innovation competitions, giving corporations, foundations, and academic institutions a means of controlling creative chaos.”
Threadless.com - A community-centered online apparel (mainly t-shirts) store inspired by an online t-shirt design contest its founders entered and won in 2000. Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit.
Wiki Wiki - You could say it all started with the god of crowdsourcing, Wikipedia, the concept of wiki’s has taken off and is now forming the backbone of many large grouping of research, definitions, and insight for everything form Medical Schools to Stargate Atlantis Fans.
99 designs allows you to crowdsource your design needs. If an organization or an individual seeks a new design, they hold a “contest” of sorts using the tools built into 99 Designs and offer up some money for their project. Designers are then allowed to post entries for these and the contest holder is allowed to pick and choose the best design(s) and distribute the money based on the winning design.
Name This - A product of Kluster.com, the ultra democratic crowdsourcing site that launched at TED conference last year. Kluster has stumbled a bit, scrapping their one-size-meets-all project development model where engineering, industrial design, copy writing, naming, graphic design and everything else was all worked into one model. Instead they have focused more recently in two directions. The first is niche areas of crowdsourcing, of which NameThis.com is a current success, allowing users to name products, companies, etc. with money for the top 3 winners. The other direction of cluster is concerned with.
eLance - eLance facilitates from hiring to collaboration to payment. You can search over 40,000 profiles for services including logo design, user interface, writing, translation, and finance. Profiles list the number of projects and reviews, useful in researching potential new vendors.
Slice The Pie - Slicethepie.com enables artists to raise money directly from their fans to professionally record and release an album. Artists can raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums. Artists who secure financing through the site pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.
oDesk - oDesk is crowdsourcing for finding programmers, creating teams and running a virtual development team or project online. Talent from around the world offer rates from $7 to $40+ per hour.
VenCorps - Created by the folks that started Cambrian House, Vencorps is startup focused. Startups present their case in video and details about their business venture and the community votes on who should win possible investment dollars and support from VenCorps and their expertise.
uTest - Good QA is commonly a shortfall for many web pros and agencies. uTest fills that gap as a global marketplace for software application testing providing QA professionals from around the world. Tools exist for writing test plans, selecting testers, individual or aggregate according to environment, experience and/or expertise. You can manage QA cycles, projects and processes. They setup testers from around the world who are all motivated to find bugs by getting paid.
BzzAgent’s Frogpond -As a clearing house for marketing driven word of mouth efforts, BzzAgent’s Frogpond connects marketers within a massive consumer network of 365,000 members, allowing the them to choose what hot new products and services they want to try out and promote. They drive significant traffic and create great feedback loops.
A Swarm of Angels - “A groundbreaking project to create a £1 million film and give it away to over 1 million people using the Internet and a global community of members.”
Polls, Crowdsourcing Opinion - Ok this is a stretch, but technically correct. And I mainly wanted to include this because of the new growth a few of these free poll sites are gaining. Check out PollDaddy.com and my sharp looking favorite, Slantly.com.
More to come, suggest your own or wait for our updates.
The last Olympics definitely had some online flavor to it, but live events? That didn’t happen. The Beijing Olympics is the first truly online Olympics, in the sense that the Obama Campaign is the first presidential campaign to really use the internet. It has happened before, but no where near this scale or value of product.
Its pretty genius when you consider the immediate benefit he gains. One of the most valuable, after pieces of information in their campaign right now, will be given straight to their supporters. Its a great way to empower the supporters. Its right down the Obama “change” road. And of course he gets the cell phone number for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of his most fervent supporters (and the entire press corps).
Be the First to Know | Barack is about to choose a running mate, and he wants you to know first. You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be part of this important moment.
Cuil was indeed formed, in large effect, by former Google employees, however Cuil is no Google and no Google Killer. Why? Well, I would suggest you test it out for yourself, but the success of searches is not there. The photo thumbnails themselves rarely seem to be relevant. And I much prefer the simlicity and keyword clustering over at 
