Tag Archives: crowdsourcing


Food52: a recipe for crowdsourcing success?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

… for by the crowd. Winning recipes are awarded prizes and eventually published.

Aside from the crowdsourcing element, what struck me most about Food52 is how good the site looks. Food-wise Amanda and Merrill may be “all about simplicity”, but there’s nothing homemade about their presentation. Winning crowdsourced recipes are accompanied by mouth-watering professional photos (warning: this is not a site for dieters). No doubt this acts as a participation incentive: “enter our …

Tags: Amanda Hesser App Store Cook crowd crowdsourcing Food Food52 Merrill Stubbs microwork new york times

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Confidence tricks: can crowdsourcing keep our feet on the ground?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

… shown the power of the crowd to overthrow dictatorial regimes but so far most attempts at using crowdsourcing to design better alternatives have met with limited success ( Iceland’s constitution being one of a few exceptions).

Despite such setbacks, as we learn to use crowdsourcing more effectively, I am certain that it will solve all the world’s problems caused by overconfidence. Absolutely, 100% certain.

Tags: Brad Guigar Charles Darwin crowd crowdsourcing Deepwater Horizon Dunning–Kruger effect Iceland Lynn Johnston microtask microwork

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Winds of change: can crowdsourcing help solve environmental problems?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Ville Miettinen

… readers of this blog will know, we here at Microtask are pretty enthusiastic when it comes to crowdsourcing initiatives that have the power to make the world a better place.

This time last year, we wrote a blog about some crowdsourcing projects designed to improve our understanding of environmental issues, including climate change. Basically, while there were some good projects, we felt that the crowd had a lot more to offer. One year later, has much changed?

I can feel it coming, …

Tags: activism Climate change crowd Crowdflower crowdsourcing iPhone microwork Needless Weather

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Flop Idol: another crowdsourcing contest site gets Minted

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Ville Miettinen

… against each other in a kind of talent contest, with winners chosen by vote.

For Minted, crowdsourcing meant more originality in the designs and (more importantly) plenty of exposure. Oh, and $5.5m worth of investment and sales upwards of $11m.

Of course, as readers of this blog know, Minted is by no means the first contest crowdsourcing site to net big investments. Proud solvers of the world’s hardest problems Kaggle, recently netted $11m. Another $3m has just gone to Design …

Tags: business Christmas crowd crowdsourcing Mariam Naficy microwork Minted Naficy PRWEB Real Simple san francisco

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Faces in the crowd: how crowdsourcing can help people fit into society

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Ville Miettinen

… of the majority”, our society often seems to favor the individual over the group.

We in the crowdsourcing industry have been working hard to dispel these myths and improve the image of the mob. Research underway at Cambridge University is doing just that, by using the crowd to help individuals who have more trouble than most fitting into society: people with autistic spectrum disorders.

Just put on a happy face

In the experiment participants are shown a number of short video …

Tags: crowd crowdsourcing Dar es Salaam Doctor of Philosophy Global Positioning System Mark OpenStreetMap Swahili language Tanzania Ushahidi

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