Crowdsourcing is written by Jeff Howe, a contributing editor to Wired magazine, where he covers the entertainment and technology industries. He discusses the rise of a number of remarkable websites which seemingly broke the rules of business. How did they do it? They utilized the power of the crowd.
Jeff Howe explains how the wisdom of crowds is nothing new, but it’s only recently that we have been able to utilize the collective power of the crowd, with the widespread use of the Internet. He has the book split into three parts: a past, present, and future of Crowdsourcing, entitled How We Got Here, Where We Are, and Where We’re Going.
Howe discusses the creation of Linux and the rise of open source software. He recounts the creation stories of websites like Threadless, iStockPhoto, Wikipedia and even CincyMoms, a site where moms located in the Cincinnati area can get their local news, share cooking tips, and rate restaurants. The site received over 50,000 visitors a day just weeks after its launch, and earned $270,000 in advertising revenue in its first three months of operation. He has countless examples of Crowdsourcing in action, ranging from the value of holding public programming contests to punk bands on Warped Tour who use MySpace to have their fans do the marketing for them.
This is a really insightful book and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who’s even remotely interested in computers, technology, business trends or the Internet.