Page 21 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014tools of the present day. It is not backed by a grand academic institution, nor does it guarantee a system of ongoing revision by experts. On the contrary, it has millions of contributors, who are not recruited on the basis of any particular criterion, but who feel motivated to contribute, improve and filter the content without anyone receiving any kind of payment. We are talking about Wikipedia, an experiment that had scarcely taken its first steps as the Twin Towers fell and which served, together with globalisation, to bring in the 21st century. In this case, the change of era on the Web catalogued on the self‐written or social Web.Wikipedia is, undoubtedly, the greatest exponent of what we call crowdsourcing. In it, we can find the definition that has been consensualised within its community:Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. This process is often used to subdivide tedious work or to fund‐raise startup companies and charities, and can also occur offline. It combines the efforts of numerous self‐identified volunteers or part‐time workers, where each contributor of their own initiative adds a small portion to the greater result. The term "crowdsourcing" is a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing"; it is distinguished from outsourcing in that the work comes from an undefined public rather than being commissioned from a specific, named group.The first recorded use of the term crowdsourcing was in an article by Jeff Howe in the journal Wired in 2006. As can be observed, the term arrived years after its manifestation in practice, since Wikipedia, repeatedly cited as the paradigmatic example, had already been in existence for some time.In fact, Wikipedia was not the first to use crowdsourcing as such. The practice of massive collaboration, externalised and with open entry, is not exclusive to the 21st century, because in human history, as anthropology makes clear, we could find many examples of this sort of practice. What is newAC/Eand differentiating at the start of this new century is the role of digital technology, the Internet as a whole, networks and personal digital assistants and the growing connectivity that favours the creation of interest groups, their internal organisation and the distribution of tasks between members.The philosophical and scientific basis that underlies crowdsourcing is the recognition that the aggregated value of a critical mass is potentially greater, for basically statistical reasons, than a limited system. To this is added the benefit arising from the fact that it is open systems that offer the opportunity to participate in a group not subject to prior control, which also increases the success factor. Digital tools act as catalysts and enablers of these major properties: the scale effect and the accessibility effect.Inspired by thisaffirmation, inrecent yearsdozens of bookshave beenpublished thattend to confirmthis thesis, suchas The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki (2004), Collective Intelligence, by Pierre Lévy (2004), Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (2006), The Alchemy of Crowds, by Francis Pisani and Dominique Piotet (2009) and, more recently, Manifiesto Crowd, by Juan Freire and Antonio Gutiérrez Rubí (2013).One way of looking at crowdsourcing is to examine it from the point of view of the trigger: the one that provokes an action, which designs the community and which handles the products that are generated. The most classic view of crowdsourcing, but also the one that has most popularised the term, is the one based on the company as a way of reducing costs, ensuring profits and getting closer to customers.There are many books, experts and success stories that have documented crowdsourcing in the corporate sphere, normally set within what has alsoCrowdsourcing is the practice of massive, externalised collaboration through the use of an open call for solutionsWHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 2: CROWDSOURCING: SHARED CULTURE CURRENT PAGE...21