Derek Powazek : Wisdom. Crowds. Design. ∞

Small simple tasks - can't ask someone to do too much. A comment form, for instance, is an open petri dish where anything can grow. There needs to be an answer - let people speak so they feel good, okay... but let them work towards an answer.
Large diverse groups - Group think happens when participants in the crowd put themselves ahead of the crowd. They limit their input out of fear. The antidote is not to avoid groups, but to design communities to encourage participation. No raising barriers of entry over time, rather they should lower them.
Design for selfishness - People want/need to get something out of doing something for you. Attention, sense of release, personal satisfaction. Have to design interface to take into account peoples' selfish motives for participation. Is it worth their time? What do THEY get for participating? There is wisdom in the data.
Result aggregation - How to take the aggregate data without turning it into a game?

2006 - Wired 14.06: The Rise of Crowdsourcing ∞

For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are – they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia – as long as they are connected to the network.

Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.

Platitudes of Spec. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. ∞

on The Logo Factor Design Blog.

good stuff re: CP+B, the infamous nike logo (designer got a diamond ring and a bundle of nike stock in 83), and the $6 twitter bird image from istockphoto.

a sarcastic logo designer snarking about, "Why you should crowdsource your new logo design" ∞

"#7 – Anyone with design software can design. Anything."

at least, i THINK he's kidding…

Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia: "I find the term 'crowdsourcing' incredibly irritating," ∞

"Any company that thinks it's going to build a site by outsourcing all the work to its users not only disrespects the users but completely misunderstands what it should be doing. Your job is to provide a structure for your users to collaborate, and that takes a lot of work."

Wales spent years fine-tuning a complex collaborative platform - one with just enough rules in place to keep people honest, but not so many that they lose interest.Disruptive Wikipedians aren't automatically banned from the site. There's an intricate network of users and administrators who hammer out a consensus on how to proceed, as well as an elected arbitration committee that rules on the toughest cases.

Wired : Is Crowdsourcing Evil? The Design Community Weighs In ∞

community and market lessons from the closing of Pixish, a crowd-sourced design site. ∞

very insightful. a+. great transaction.

Papervision3D ∞

open source 3d flash

CrowdSpring leverages "weasel economics" ∞

note the great responses in the comments as well.

Ryohei Hase ∞

The Luxury of Protest ∞

INSPIRATIONAL PRINT DESIGN / B+W

Western Men Are Doomed - NYTimes Opinionator Blog ∞

"If you show Americans a fish tank, they’ll talk about the biggest fish in the tank. If you show Asians a tank they will make, on average, 60 percent more references to the context and the features of the scene. Western parents tend to emphasize nouns and categories when teaching their kids, Korean parents tend to emphasize verbs and relationships. If you show Americans a picture of a chicken, a cow and grass, they will lump the chicken and the cow, because they are both animals. Asians are more likely to lump the cow and the grass because cows eat grass. They have a relationship."

[video] Rammstein live ∞

Basel, Switzerland