Comments on: Ways to Crowdsource http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/ Community Strategist Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:24:36 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: vineeta http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-3653 vineeta Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:25:20 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-3653 Hi, All very useful information. I am trying to find ways to drive traffic in a new crowdsourced websites. Any thoughts? Hi,

All very useful information. I am trying to find ways to drive traffic in a new crowdsourced websites. Any thoughts?

]]> By: Sergey Brin http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1984 Sergey Brin Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:39:31 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1984 Very useful! Thx Very useful! Thx

]]> By: David http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1569 David Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:17:02 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1569 ... addendum: just had a quick Google and it appears than von Ahn's ESP Game has since been licensed by Google and is now employed in their Image Search. : ) … addendum: just had a quick Google and it appears than von Ahn’s ESP Game has since been licensed by Google and is now employed in their Image Search. : )

]]> By: David http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1568 David Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:15:56 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1568 Hi Connie, just wanted to highlight a couple of other interesting crowdsourcing projects which are working to solve problems via distributed intelligence: Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" and Louis von Ahn's "Games With a Purpose". Louis' (who, cute fact, invented the CAPTCHA) project is ultimately to highlight the importance of human computation to machine computation: there are some things machines can't do quite as well just yet, that we as humans take for granted how simple they are. Image recognition, for example. His ESP Game, e.g., where two people are given an image of the same picture, and cannot communicate with each other; each lists a number of words/phrases to describe the picture and are rewarded with points per matching phrase. The "matches" are then compiled as an accurate description of the picture, and can be input into a database to refine the granularity of image searching. Hi Connie, just wanted to highlight a couple of other interesting crowdsourcing projects which are working to solve problems via distributed intelligence: Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” and Louis von Ahn’s “Games With a Purpose”. Louis’ (who, cute fact, invented the CAPTCHA) project is ultimately to highlight the importance of human computation to machine computation: there are some things machines can’t do quite as well just yet, that we as humans take for granted how simple they are. Image recognition, for example. His ESP Game, e.g., where two people are given an image of the same picture, and cannot communicate with each other; each lists a number of words/phrases to describe the picture and are rewarded with points per matching phrase. The “matches” are then compiled as an accurate description of the picture, and can be input into a database to refine the granularity of image searching.

]]> By: Connie http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1563 Connie Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:24:47 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1563 Thanks Darek! I was talking to someone the other night about his passion for open innovation. More coming on that. And Scott - you're totally right. Using crowdsourcing for contesting & using it to creating a marketing tool that has the potential to be viral is a topic unto itself. But it is a great example of encouraging the community to interact (which many find a challenge). Thanks for all of your ideas! They add a lot of value here. I'll add it to the post. Connie Thanks Darek! I was talking to someone the other night about his passion for open innovation. More coming on that.

And Scott – you’re totally right. Using crowdsourcing for contesting & using it to creating a marketing tool that has the potential to be viral is a topic unto itself. But it is a great example of encouraging the community to interact (which many find a challenge). Thanks for all of your ideas! They add a lot of value here. I’ll add it to the post.
Connie

]]> By: Scott Hammond http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1558 Scott Hammond Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:50:13 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1558 Great post, Connie. One thing I would add, as a resource for Community Managers trying to spark more activity or create a quick traffic bump crowdsourcing is a favorite of mine. On a site like LinkedIn the Q&A section is a great way to not only learn, but connect with other people who have useful information. Connecting members to each other is the best way to generate more community activity. You can also use crowdsourcing in a contest format to spike traffic, and to turn your users into 2.0 marketing evangelists for your site. It's a situational tool, one that works best when you have a site purpose that meshes well with user generated entertainment/artistic content. If you have a small budget you can set up a crowdsource contest where users generate entries, other users vote on them, and you give out prizes for the winners. By tying vote totals to winning and subsidizing the win with a tangible prize you are encouraging all the contestants to do their own publicity, driving traffic back to your site to gain votes. If you can make your entry template a widget and allow them to embed it outside of your community you get the dual advantage of free advertising and tracking data on your members habits. By tracking which sites send the biggest backflow of traffic to your community you can identify a few fertile areas for recruitment. And best of all, its cheap, especially when you compare it to a marketing agencies campaign that generates similar results in awareness and traffic. Great post, Connie. One thing I would add, as a resource for Community Managers trying to spark more activity or create a quick traffic bump crowdsourcing is a favorite of mine. On a site like LinkedIn the Q&A section is a great way to not only learn, but connect with other people who have useful information. Connecting members to each other is the best way to generate more community activity. You can also use crowdsourcing in a contest format to spike traffic, and to turn your users into 2.0 marketing evangelists for your site.

It’s a situational tool, one that works best when you have a site purpose that meshes well with user generated entertainment/artistic content. If you have a small budget you can set up a crowdsource contest where users generate entries, other users vote on them, and you give out prizes for the winners.

By tying vote totals to winning and subsidizing the win with a tangible prize you are encouraging all the contestants to do their own publicity, driving traffic back to your site to gain votes. If you can make your entry template a widget and allow them to embed it outside of your community you get the dual advantage of free advertising and tracking data on your members habits. By tracking which sites send the biggest backflow of traffic to your community you can identify a few fertile areas for recruitment. And best of all, its cheap, especially when you compare it to a marketing agencies campaign that generates similar results in awareness and traffic.

]]> By: Darek http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1554 Darek Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:09:02 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1554 Hi Connie, indeed asking questions to your network is a great example of crowdsourcing any of us can do. I would also see a lot of case studies from the corporate world, many of great examples described in the Wikinomics book. One of them is InnoCentive - the companies present their problems to the community along with the proposed rewards, and the community comes back with solutions. Another example: prediction markets, used by organizations to harvest the crowd's knowledge to forecast future events. Hi Connie, indeed asking questions to your network is a great example of crowdsourcing any of us can do. I would also see a lot of case studies from the corporate world, many of great examples described in the Wikinomics book. One of them is InnoCentive – the companies present their problems to the community along with the proposed rewards, and the community comes back with solutions. Another example: prediction markets, used by organizations to harvest the crowd’s knowledge to forecast future events.

]]> By: Connie http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1553 Connie Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:21:56 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1553 That's what we're here for, Amber! :) That’s what we’re here for, Amber! :)

]]> By: Amber Naslund http://conniebensen.com/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/comment-page-1/#comment-1552 Amber Naslund Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:33:12 +0000 http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/16/ways-to-crowdsource/#comment-1552 Hi Connie - I'm constantly impressed with the ways that my online communities - especially on Plurk and Twitter - manage to help each other out. Their generosity of spirit and wealth of information are so much a part of what makes these communities unique. Thanks for being part of them with me, and for helping me break through that pesky writers block! Amber Hi Connie – I’m constantly impressed with the ways that my online communities – especially on Plurk and Twitter – manage to help each other out. Their generosity of spirit and wealth of information are so much a part of what makes these communities unique. Thanks for being part of them with me, and for helping me break through that pesky writers block!

Amber

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