This is the free version of Trends PRO #0042 — Crowdsourcing
🔍 Problem
Some challenges are hard, or impossible, to solve in a centralized way.
💡 Solution
Leverage the time, money, energy and experience of others to reach your goal.
🏁 Players
- Design
- Newsletters
- Books
- Research
- Cloud Storage
🔮 Predictions
- We’ll see more crowdsourced networks like Helium. The need for permissionless access can outweigh the cost of inefficient, decentralized networks. Cuba is a natural experiment.
- Crowdsourced governance will move from stocks to fractionally-owned assets and DAOs.
☁️ Opportunities
- Use crowdsourced data to find your next investment. See Product Explorer.
- Use crowdsourced data to find out what to build next. Webflow’s wishlist is full of Micro-SaaS opportunities.
- Crowdsource your growth tool. Martin invites you to add your Carrd site to Drrac’s directory. The gallery is used to promote his digital product and XaaS businesses.
- Crowdsource content marketing. Piggyback on the others’ platforms with standardized interviews. See Build In Public, Indie Hackers and No Code MBA.
- Reward contributors
🔑 Key Lessons
- Look at revealed, not stated, preferences. Google, YouTube and Twitter use behavior-based crowdsourcing. We may lie. But actions don’t.
- Crowdsourcing moves civilization forward. The human colossus is built on the shoulders of previous achievements.
😠 Haters
“Behavior-based crowdsourcing leads to addictive experiences.”
This proves it’s effectiveness. But should not be abused. We discussed the pros and cons of gamification in a separate report.
“You mentioned Kickstarter. This is crowdfunding.”
Yes. And crowdsourcing (of demand and capital).
“These platforms steal data from users.”
Each platform has different rules and users opt-in.
“mTurk pays below minimum wage.”
Who’s minimum wage? And would it be better if mTurk didn’t exist?
“What about low-quality contributions?”
You can crowdsource quality assurance. Stack Overflow and Genius use voting systems.
“What’s the difference between crowdsourcing and outsourcing?”
They are not mutually exclusive. Crowdsourcing is outsourcing. But the “payment” may be intrinsic.
🔗 Links
- How to Find Hidden Value That Others Miss • Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List, built a system to find the best screenplays.
- Pieter Levels • As a solo founder, he’s crowdsourced products like the MAKE book, NomadList, Hoodmaps and more.
- A Masterclass in Crowdsourcing • Duolingo tapped into hard-to-find skills to scale.
- Gamification • Study incentive design to successfully crowdsource.
- Micro-Marketplaces • Like paid communities, crowdsourcing is native to this model.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Gene Maryushenko (Swipe Page), Janel Loi (Newsletter OS), Logan Johnson, Yarty Kim (Kick Ass Leters), Pablo Heredia (Pheedback), Russell Lieberman (Altan Insights) and Seth Kramer (No Code MBA). We had a great time jamming on this report.
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What you’ll get:
- 25 Types of Crowdsourcing (400% More)
- 80 Crowdsourcing Examples (433% More)
- 4 Predictions (100% More)
- 16 Opportunities (220% More)
- 5 Key Lessons (150% More)
- 16 Summarized Links (220% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) How to crowdsource sales?
- (📈 Pro) What are examples of “hidden” crowdsourcing?
- (📈 Pro) How to crowdsource deal flow?
- (📈 Pro) What are 3 key traits of viral campaigns?
- (📈 Pro) When does intrinsic motivation lead to better results than extrinsic rewards?
- (📈 Pro) How is Yelp replacing non-crowdsourced platforms?
- (📈Pro) How does two-way rating systems crowdsource trust?
- and a lot more…
