The simplest example of the real impact of amateurs taking on the role of professionals can be seen in the photography industry. The level of training has been reduced considerably because the technology has advanced significantly and has become so simple to use. So much so, that stock photography sites are now paying amateurs for their quality images. The stock photography industry has been just one of the sources for new proam trends over the Internet. What is important to gather from these examples are the underlying trends. In this case, stock photography was the basis for discovering crowdsourcing which happens when companies are trying to leverage the generated output of the pro-ams towards accomplishing a task.
1.2.2 Meso: Crowdsourcing principles Enter crowdsourcing, a 2006 Internet phenomenon. Crowdsourcing is the action of asking large amounts of people to accomplish tasks using the Internet as a network. The neologism ―crowdsourcing‖ was coined in the context of businesses outsourcing specialized tasks to amateurs over the web. Now the productive potential of millions of online amateurs is attracting the attention of businesses and professionals27 . In the end, solutions could come from the productive potential of millions of pluggedin enthusiasts 28. By collecting the input of the public online, crowdsourcing allows for a problem to be handled by virtual crowds, then rewarding those with the best ideas. These problems are divided into tasks that can vary from the more specific like transcribing the spoken words of a podcast, to the more
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In 2006, Jeff Howe exposed in Wired magazine the concept of crowdsourcing by looking at how amateurs with digital cameras affected professional photographers. 28 Howe, J (2006) “Crowdsourcing”.
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