Crowdsourcing

I found the story of the New York Time's crowdsourcing debacle fascinating. Yes, crowdsourcing can be used as a brilliant journalistic tool, enabling journalists to connect with the people, easily gather information from a wide range of sources and turn an overwhelming job into a far simpler one. But oh, how it can be misused.

After requesting readers sort through bucketloads of Sarah Palin's personal emails on the lookout for anything juicy, New York Times journos received responses like "Don't you folks get paid to do this work yourself?" and "I would rather watch paint dry". How humiliating.

These journos overlooked a vital component of any crowdsourcing success story - that the participants have to actually get something out of it, and they lost a whole lot of credibility in the process.

The online world sets up the perfect crowdsourcing foundation. Participants can join in from wherever they are and responses can be tracked, counted and analysed in great detail. However, just sticking a request up on the net doesn't necessarily make it worthwhile. A sense of competition and fun is so important in attracting (and keeping) an audience.

So for my own little crowdsourcing experiment, I'm requesting you all send in ideas for my next online journalism blog post ... Ha. (I'm hoping you sensed the sarcasm)