It's all gone Fasolt and Fafner

Crowdsourcing: And the Rheingold Goes to .... Dell

19 August 2008 When I do media interviews or public talks, I'm almost invariably asked two questions: 1) Are there any big companies engaged in crowdsourcing? and 2) Who is using crowdsourcing effectively? One would think I could provide one example that would answer both questions, but that's surprisingly difficult to do. As I say in my book...

No, we're not talking about Wagnerian opera but the commentator, Howard Rheingold, who foresaw years ago much of what goes on today in the social use of the Internet. Jeff Howe, whose blog I've quoted from above, does the decent thing and acknowledges, even highlights, Rheingold's originality.

That's generous of Howe but note the early mentions of his own interviews, talks and new book. He thinks you ought to see him as important, too, and also wants to sell you something.

His Web site, like those of many US commentators (including Rheingold's), is testament to an immodesty that seems to come naturally to Americans. It's just normal business to them but to many Britons, including me, it's tedious boastfulness. I'm no shrinking violet, heaven knows, but even I don't go that far.

Not entirely off-topic

My main hobby is photography and I use an RSS reader (GreatNews) to keep track of blogs about it that interest me. One I had expectations of but have given up with is from Scott Kelby, an expert on Adobe Photoshop.

As one does, I subscribed because I was hopeful of picking up useful tips and links. Fat chance. Kelby's blog is almost wholly about him and his latest workshops and books. He is also very careful not to give you anything he could sell you. Photoshop hardly gets a look in.

It reminds me of the story of the conductor, egotistical even by their standards (probably von Karajan, then), who in the post-concert party was raving about 'his' performance of the featured symphony. "How did Beethoven get on?", asked some critic.

Compare Kelby's site with the admirable Strobist blog. It's run by David Hobby, who, despite his surname, is a professional photographer. Strobist does one thing only but does it well - tell you how to use flash lighting with your camera.

Hobby has a light touch (no pun intended) and, unlike Kelby, is self-effacing. You have to dig a little to find out about him. The content of his blog is always fresh, relevant, directly useful and often amusing. It's no wonder a quarter of a million people read it.

Another photography blog is Photowalking. Its author, Trevor Carpenter, defines this as "...the act of walking with a camera for the main purpose of taking pictures of things you may find interesting".

What's new or different about that? Photographers have been doing this, on their own or in groups, since the arrival of hand-holdable cameras, about a hundred years ago.

The site itself is unobjectionable. It provides useful contact information if you like to pursue your hobby in the company of other (American) photographers. What I find noteworthy is the way its authors have hijacked a commonplace activity and remorselessly propagandise about it as though it were something special.

This the revenge of the pigeonholing nerds. Like sociologists and marketeers, they love putting a label on the ordinary and unremarkable. Also, I must admit, announcing that one is "going photowalking" sounds so much more decisive and mysterious than saying "I'm going out for a stroll with my camera". 8-)

Back to business

All of which meandering leads us to the main topic of this item, "crowdsourcing". Linguistically, it's a ugly term, embodying that silly modern verb, "source". Nobody buys, purchases, finds, locates, tracks down or simply gets anything any more - they source it.

Conceptually, it seems to me another example of putting a label on the ordinary and unremarkable (and remorselessly propagandising about it). Moreover, unlike the 'photowalkers', Howe seems to be grouping all sorts of disparate activities under the one hat, possibly to try to legitimise his idea.

Of course, the idea will receive support from the people who constitute Howe's crowds. We all like to think our views count, that we have some control of the forces around us, that we're not nobodies.

The problem is that those supporters, as well as the crowd itself, consists only of people whose computers can connect to the Internet and who are comfortable with using both. Nor is it necessarily representative of the views of the majority of them.

As for the "wisdom of crowds", this is arrant rubbish. Crowds are like adolescent children - hyperemotional, impatient, prone to violence when thwarted and with the attention span of a gnat. Wisdom is the last thing you get from them.

I might deal with this subject again later. Another day, another rant.