Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Crowdsourcing "immoral"? Well... maybe, but it sure as hell is stupid.

In many cases, companies have persuaded people to complete simple tasks for no pay at all, instead offering recognition within the volunteer community or points in the guise of a game. Mr. Zittrain called it "a wonderful Tom Sawyer syndrome.

A very dark look at the current state of the digital world.

Personally I loathe 'crowdsourcing' and that crap, it is terribly lame and one of the more stupid models of business I can think of.

I believe that the immoral thing may be a bit much... no one 'forces' the participants.

My favorite graph:
"Fees paid for crowdsourced tasks are usually so meager that they could not possibly earn participants a living wage, Mr. Zittrain argued. He is familiar with one group drawn to the services: poor graduate students seeking spending money."

Yes. Turn your marketing message over to a college student looking for beer money.

Sure. What could go wrong.

As for the thought that crowdsourcing could actually make someone some money... ask Arianna Huffington and you may find a different point of view than mine.

But then, she is a greedy moron, and I am only blogger.

Posted via email from Now This is Cool...

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