Crowdsourcing

The book I read to research this post was Crowdsourcing For Dummies by David Alan Grier which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Crowdsourcing can be done on social media sites but most companies prefer dedicated sites like http://mturk.com which is mechanical turk owned by Amazon and one of the biggest sites of its type. Some sites specialize in something like design or computer programming. Crowdsourcing basically is getting a large group of people to help your company or charity reach its goal for which they may or may not get paid or may get some kind of gift. There are different names for the different types of crowdsourcing. Crowdfunding is getting a large group of people to help you raise funds and this is well suited to social media. Crowdcontests are where you get people to submit something like designs for something and a winner is chosen and that person gets paid. The amount offered has to be quite substantial to attract interest. Microtasking is when a task is broken up and a little given to each of a group. Macrotasking is when 1 person is chosen to do a job. These kinds of sites let you employ very specialized people at a cheaper price than if you employed them locally. Probably the biggest crowdspourcing site is http://fiverr.com although it can be limiting in that all jobs pay 5 dollars before deductions. I thoroughly enjoyed this book which is on an interesting subject and packed with information for both businesses and those looking to make a bit of extra money.