The idea of crowdsourcing is not part of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ). The concept comes from the English language and is developed from two terms: crowd (which can be translated as "crowd" ) and outsourcing (which refers to the "externalization of resources" ).
Crowdsourcing, therefore, refers to massive collaboration provided by individuals who are not part of an entity or institution . This is an open modality of joint work .
The notion is linked to a call addressed to an indefinite number of people, who contribute their ideas for the development of a certain project. The person who makes the call, in this way, outsources a task.
Other ways crowdsourcing is known are crowdsourcing and distributed crowdsourcing . One of its most important characteristics is that the work of the community or group of individuals who are openly called to participate in a project replaces what would traditionally be done by hired people or companies.
The term was coined in 2006 by writer Jeff Howe , who works for Wired magazine covering topics such as the entertainment industry. Precisely, he used the word crowdsourcing for the first time in an article titled " The emergence of crowdsourcing ", in said publication.
Howe pointed out that through crowdsourcing we access the most suitable individuals for the task, since the call is open and the chances of those who do not feel prepared to give their best to respond are lower than in a traditional contract. In addition to their performance in solving the problems raised by the person directing the campaign, collaborators can share their own ideas, a factor that increases the degree of diversity.
Among the tasks most often carried out through outsourcing are the following: collaboration for the capture, systematization, processing and analysis of large amounts of data; the improvement and implementation of various algorithms; the realization of a given design, such as the characters and levels of a video game in a crowdfunding campaign.
This concept has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, both among those who take advantage of it to carry out projects and for those who write about it and the advantages it offers in different fields, whether research or business. The Internet, and more specifically web 2.0 , is essential for most proposals of this type.
Beyond these definitions, the truth is that there is no single way to understand crowdsourcing. At a general level it can be stated that it consists of collaborative and voluntary work .
Suppose a town's newspaper plans to publish a report on how much money people spend on food. With this objective, it launches a call for neighbors to collect the receipts and invoices for this type of purchases for a week, digitize them and send them via email, detailing how their family group is made up. Once the deadline has passed, a journalist from the newspaper is in charge of compiling the information and creating various statistics that are reflected in the special report. It could be said that the journalistic article in question was carried out thanks to crowdsourcing.
A beer brand , on the other hand, can invite consumers to come up with a new slogan . The firm's marketing experts will select ten phrases, which will be put to a vote over the Internet. The author of the phrase that is chosen, as a prize, will receive twenty liters of beer per month free of charge for one year. In this way, the company in question appeals to crowdsourcing.