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The Psychology Behind Gamesourcing

Nov-23-11 By Aminda
A recent post discussed the importance of getting more participation in open science. An article from Top Coder provides some interesting insight into why “gamesourcing” has been such a successful way to engage users in scientific projects.

While the gamesourcing model may not solve every problem, Adrien Treuille, co-founder of FoldIt, a gamesourcing platform which successfully solved a molecular, explains why game-play and Crowdsourcing worked so well for that challenge. Among her reasons:

It's a Total Rush! Playing a game is fun. Games that tie social experiences to the game-play can be extremely fun for the players. The Foldit creators experienced this first hand as an excited and dedicated community quickly developed around this game. In other words, it wasn't work, it was enjoyable and therefore people kept coming back to play more.

Creative Job Creation

Nov-14-11 By Aminda
As the world struggles to break out of the recession, employment and job creation are of significant concern. A new company called MobileWorks is optimistic that their service has the potential to expand job opportunities to workers around the world. Basing its format on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, the site allows workers to perform simple tasks for a fee. The startup has seen positive results inIndiaandPakistanwhere workers do tasks that are “technical but unskilled—tagging images, proofreading articles, reading handwriting that computers can’t decipher.”

New Crowdsourcing Sites Provide New Learning Opportunities

Nov-08-11 By Aminda
Some interesting new crowdsourcing sites are geared towards sharing knowledge.

As Wikipedia has proved there is a large demand for well-organized information on almost any topic, opportunities abound for similar tools. MentorMob.com launched recently with the goal of helping “anyone learn virtually anything by providing a repository of cultivated, crowdsourced educational content organized into step-by-step instruction.”

Maldives Seeks Assistance with Renewable Energy Plan

Oct-04-11 By Aminda
Reaction was mixed to the announcement that The Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean has become the first country to crowdsource its renewable energy plan.

Comments reacting to a story on a national news site ranged from an optimistic “I applaud the Government for releasing and requesting comments on this. Wish they had done this sooner!” to a more skeptical “If the Government needs the whole world to help with an investment framework the President should immediately fire his energy advisor.”

According to the article, the nation aims to cut emissions by 60 percent before 2020 and the plan suggests that up to 80 percent of the electricity island communities use could be derived from renewable energy, without the cost of energy increasing.  

Virtual Border Watch

Sep-02-11 By Aminda
Controversy surrounding the U.S./Mexican border has made global headlines over the past year. Regardless of one’s political stance, a creative use of a crowdsourcing platform is an interesting story for any social media enthusiast.

The Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition (TBSC) has been using a Virtual Community Watch surveillance program to let the public participate in fighting border crime. Streaming videos from 21 cameras posted along the border run 24/7. Each camera comes with description of what viewers should be looking for. For example, Camera 19 states, “this is a known drug traffic area. If you see people walking along this trail carrying backpacks or packages please report this activity.”

Preserving the Past

Aug-24-11 By Aminda
With today’s pace of change it feels like the future comes at us at warp speed. The mind boggling speed of life is enough to makes us want to slow down and appreciate where we’ve come from. Perhaps that explains the popularity of online history projects. Today, anyone can contribute to preserving memories— here are a few examples.
“Seeing” Old San Francisco
A 1906 fire in San Francisco led to mass destruction of the city’s structures. Now, a project is underway to revive a detailed set of maps drawn the year before the fire to recreate historic San Francisco. The maps have been scanned in high resolution, making them accessible from mobile phones so the public can help "geo-rectify" the maps. “It gives you context for the neighborhood you live in,” says one of the project’s founders. You can figure out where people worked and lived, where they had their beer, a hundred years ago.

The Publisher’s Dilemma

Aug-12-11 By Aminda
Creative minds and innovative problem solvers – the publishing industry needs your help to guide it into the future. Affordable eReaders have brought eBooks to the masses and Google’s rapid entry into the eBook retailer space seems to signify a tipping point of sorts, when it’s clear that the domination of eBooks is in the not-too-distant future. The challenge to writers and publishers is how to make this transition successful and sustainable and beneficial to all parties; publishers, retailers, authors and readers.
A Huffington Post article provides a concise, insightful look at this transformation, pointing out some of the major challenges and opportunities. On one hand, ePublishing provides incredible opportunity to aspiring writers. The ease of self publishing allows anyone to profit from their work without dealing with the chain of agents and publishers. It's a liberating development for many authors, according to one writer, who explains that as traditional book sales have declined, publishers have gradually provided fewer benefits to their authors.

New Tools for Customer Intelligence

Aug-02-11 By Aminda
One thing that all businesses of any industry or size have in common is that they wouldn’t exist without customers. So it would make sense that businesses would want to know as much as possible about their customers: what they want, how much they want to spend and how they make decisions on products. Fortunately, with social media, crowdsourcing and other innovations, it’s easier, more efficient and more affordable to gather consumer intelligence. Here are some examples:

TED Talks to Spark Creativity

Aug-01-11 By Aminda
When looking for creative inspiration there might not be a much better source than TED talks. TED is an organization dedicated to Ideas Worth Spreading. Through conferences and online videos, these events have been inspiring, encouraging and motivating people for years. A recent TEDx event at Chapel Hill University focused on presenting new innovations related to health care, particularly to improving service the neediest amongst us.

Companies Collaborate to Protect Linux

Jul-01-11 By Aminda
The Open Innovation Network this year has received a fresh round of publicity after being joined by Facebook, HP and OpenStack. The OIN was formed in 2005 to ensure that individual programmers, independent software vendors, distributors and businesses have open access to intellectual property related to the Linux System. The organization accomplishes this by acquiring patents to be used for cross-licensing purposes to defend the Linux System - making them available on a royalty-free basis to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System.. These new members join companies including IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, Sony and NEC.