Crowdsourcing

Spreken zie Deutsch

Hmm. Maybe there's something to this crowdsourcing thing. We received such a great response to the first solicitation a few nights ago that I thought I would try it again. This time I'm hoping to locate a German-speaking correspondent who will scan the blogosphere and file a report for those of us here at Crowdsourcing.com. Simply put, something's up in Germany. There have been numerous blog posts on the subject of crowdsourcing in the last several days, and I'm dying to know what they're about.

Some of you may be saying, "Hasn't Jeff tried this before?" Okay, that's true. In fact, I received a fair number of respondents to an earlier call for overseas assistance. My mistake was not adequately explaining what I expected from my foreign correspondents. This time I'm going to put the guidelines right in the post.

Step 1: Contact me at Jeffhowe@wiredmag.com and tell me you're able and willing.
Step 2: Go to this page on Technorati.com (a blog search engine). You should find 449 blog mentions of the term crowdsourcing. Don't let the number scare you away.
Step 3: Start reading. Invariably, many of these posts will be splogs or other forms of Internet flotsam. Unless there's substantive content keep moving.
Step 4: Try to ferret out discussion threads. Has a German crowdsourcing company recently launched? Is there an academic study on the subject that people are talking about? An incisive piece in Der Spiegel? Where else are the authors linking? Basically answer the question--what is everyone blogging about.
Step 5: Report back to me. Last month a reader living in Mexico contacted me asking if I wanted a report on crowdsourcing occurrences in the Spanish-speaking world. Two weeks later he filed his report: Nothing, really, was going on. Good enough. This is valuable information in itself, though I have a gut feeling this won't be the case with the German posts.
Step 6: I post your report on crowdsourcing.com.

And that's it. Crowdsourcing.com: We Walk the Talk.

Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing.com

I wanted to provide an update to a previous post in which I asked for volunteer foreign correspondents. I estimate that about 30 percent of the blog chatter about crowdsourcing takes place in languages other than English. I'd really like crowdsourcing.com to serve as a central repository for information on the phenomenon, regardless of its geographical origin. The good news is that I received some welcome replies to that post. The positions of Japanese, German and French correspondent have all been taken, and I even have a lead on someone who might contribute from China. The bad news is that the all-important Spanish-speaking position is still open, so if you're fluent and willing to write the occasional post, please drop me a note. It's worth noting here, as an aside, that crowdsourcing.com is and always has been a group blog. Granted, it's been a group blog with a single author, but that's never been the intention. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If you've got a good idea, it's relevant to the subject and you can string several sentences together without tying them up in knots, drop me a line. Even if you don't speak Spanish.

Foreign Correspondents Needed!

Long before she ascended to the throne of England Elizabeth Tudor had become fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Latin. Too bad she's no longer with us, as bloggers have written about crowdsourcing in every one of those languages except Latin (the "crowdsouring for fun and profit" juggernaut having failed to penetrate the Vatican). Unfortunately, I speak none of these. (Perhaps it was the lack of royal tutors.) Given the volume of foreign-language postings, there's a lot of interesting stuff that isn't being tracked in the U.S. As such, I'm looking for volunteers who might be willing to file the occasional digest of (legitimate and interesting) crowdsourcing developments overseas. I've already got a Francophone lined up for the job, but the Spanish-, German- and Japanese-speaking slots remain open. Contact me for details.