Does Crowdsourcing Have Real Stay Power?
By: Andy Beal
It seems that crowdsourcing is fast becoming the “next big thing.” Whether you call it “social answers,” “help engines” or something else, there’s a growing trend of asking those in your network to help you out with advice. Heck, there’s even a new search engine being built around the concept!
I spotted two interesting uses of crowdsourcing over the last 24 hours. First, AdWeek writer Marian Salzman decided that an article on how Dominos could repair its damaged reputation would be best constructed if the she tapped into the wisdom of the crowds. She sent out requests to numerous places and ended-up with some concrete reputation management advice.
I’ve personally been quiet about the Dominos saga–I’ve simply been too busy–but it was easy for me to add my 2-cents to the list of great advice:
If Domino’s really wanted to be creative in its response, record a video of chef Gordon Ramsay conducting one of his notoriously pedantic inspections of the kitchen in question. With Ramsay’s seal of approval, Domino’s customers would feel comfortable ordering pizza again.
Next up, I see that Robert Scoble used crowdsourcing to get suggestions for search engine optimization. He ended up getting a great list of practical references and even Google’s Matt Cutts personally helped out–how’s that for getting free advice!
Now, before you all rush off and think of new start-ups based on crowdsourcing, a word of caution. While technology driven resources such as Google have an infinite desire to answer your questions, your social networks don’t. Answering the questions of friends and followers is still a novelty. The real test will be whether we all end up suffering from what I call “participation fatigue” and get sick of answering the questions thrown out to the crowd.
Have you seen any other examples of successfully using crowdsourcing to get advice?
