Crowdsourcing

Assignment Zero ... They Like Us, They Really Like Us (Except these guys)

The reaction to the launch of Assignment Zero was so profound that even I was surprised (and I think it's a pretty important, if risky step.) By my rough count, there were well nigh 150 blog posts on us in the first 24 hour, and we've received inquiries from a number of journalists. This is all good news of course, as it drives more potential contributors to the site—they can't join if they don't know about it.

While reactions were generally positive (here's Assignment Zero's David Cohn with a representative round up), the critical reactions were more interesting and, frankly, helpful. Here's a brief selection:

John Bell from Digital Influence Mapping has a long, incisive Q&A with Andrew Nachison of ifocos.org (Institute for a Connected Society) on what we're doing. After expressing his best of wishes for the project, he points out the difficulty he initially had navigating the site. And sure enough, we're trying to bring more clarity and make the relationship between our various sections more obvious. He also points out that in first encountering our assignment desk, which is where we dole out story assignments to willing contributors, he gets no clear idea of what we're covering and why. We're hoping to make that more evident as well. This kind of concrete criticism is just what the transparency is about. We make our mistakes in real time, in front of everyone, instead of behind closed doors and a firewall. It's a little messy and a little humbling, but then again, real newsrooms are a little messy too.

But rather than defend ourselves, but Terry Heaton does it with eloquence and wit to spare. From his PoMo Blog:

The most refreshing thing about the whole deal is the almost playful spirit associated with those involved. It’s not that this isn’t terribly serious, for it is, but every person admits that this is being made up as it goes along. And let’s face it; we first learned how to do that in kindergarten, so why shouldn’t there be a little joy? The goals is great journalism and insight into how professionals and amateurs might work together. The path? Well, that’s open to discovery.

Finally, 901am.com asks is "Wired on Drugs, or Adopting a Foreign Language?" Take it from a writer, it's not easy to carry a drug metaphor (or any other metaphor, for that matter) over long distances. But Duncan Riley does it with great aplomb. Discussing our introductory essay on Wired.com Wednesday, he notes that whether or not Wired's on drugs, he'd "need to be to understand this gobbledlygook." Then there's the bizarre observation that the journalistic term "beat" obviously derives from the beatniks. But this is my favorite: "Crowdsourcing mixed with Peer Production? Sounds like a great LSD trip!" He ends with a link to our splash page: "Pass the bong and sign up here."

Right now I'm a fan of just about anyone who's not high on Web 2.0 fumes (and yes, I realize I've been hitting that particular pipe for a while now), but Mr. Riley lodges a serious charge that I'd like to address now: Not only is Wired not doing this to "suck free content from users," but our little foray into citizen journalism is costing us quite a bit of money. I know all big corporations are filled with evil cabals whose days are spent trying to think of new ways to screw the noble user and all, but Wired is honestly doing this because we want to be involved in the reinvention of journalism, and believes that our readers will bring a tremendous value to the process of making the media. And that's not the pot talking...

Diversity of the Crowd: Part I

Crowdsourcing has gained velocity in both the breadth and quantity of its applications. I generally don't attempt to record all (or even most) of these, but I was so struck by the diversity of crowdsourcing efforts come to light over the last few days that I thought I'd try to round them up for the purpose of emphasizing the model's usefulness across a range of disciplines. I find this diversification greatly encouraging, both because it serves as testimony to the unbounded imagination out there, and because it supports my original supposition that crowdsourcing is a phenomenon notable for its flexibility, capable of being used to generate scientific solutions as easily as, say, monetizing user-generated video. To this end I'm launching a series of posts that will start today and run daily through next week.

• Crowd as Jury: Floyd Landis, the disgraced American bicyclist and winner, for a day, of the 2006 Tour de France, has posted to his Web site all the documents relating to his ongoing attempt to clear his name. Some call this crowdsourcing; I'm a little more skeptical. This falls just outside my definition of the term, which involves a person, company or institution deriving value from the crowd's ability to perform some specific task. This isn't the case here: Landis is not, for instance, posting his test results to the scientific community at large in the hope that further analysis will contradict the Anti-Doping Review Board, which recommended sanctions against Landis. But Landis is crowdsourcing a less tangible function: the public's capacity to pardon, from time to time, celebrities that higher authorities have already condemned. Historically such appeals have been made through mediators like newspaper columnists and talk show hosts that shape public opinion. Landis is taking the evidence straight to the crowd. It's a novel approach, whatever the ultimate verdict.