About the Site

• Crowdsourcing.org's purpose

• Crowdsourcing.org provides information and insights on the subject of crowdsourcing and application of crowdsourcing models. We have developed a community based crowdsourcing platform for editorial and user content in the form of articles, blog entries, documents, site reviews, sponsor sites and videos all on the subject of crowdsourcing.

• Crowdsourcing.org's mission

• Crowdsourcing.org’s mission is to become the number one on-line destination for “everything and anything crowdsourcing”. We have three primary goals:
• 1. To be the “Go-To” place for authoritative, information rich content and insights. The pulse of crowdsourcing!
  2. To provide a platform for community research and reporting into the tenets, forces, behaviors and applications of crowdsourcing models.
  3. To promote the industry, enable experts to network, develop expertise and provide knowledge and resources.

• What is Crowdsourcing?

• Crowdsourcing is sometimes otherwise referred to as Mass Collaboration, Open Innovation, Community Production, Mass Solutions, Constituent Driven Innovation, Connected Intelligence, Collective Wisdom, Intelligent networks and Human Networks.Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open invite (call).
• Crowdsourcing is typically enabled through online communities consisting of members with common skills or interests and is applied as a model that enables individuals and groups to innovate, create, produce, report, predict, collaborate, fund and to engage customers.

• Why should I join?

• In the world of crowdsourcing, Crowdsourcing.org is the place to come if you if you want to checkout what’s happening or if you want to join the debate! At Crowdsourcing.org you will find authoritative, information rich content and insights about crowdsourcing. With the explosion of interest in crowdsourcing, information and insights are widely disaggregated – keeping up with the dialogue, the trend and its application is becoming harder - as a member of Crowdsourcing.org. you can find it all in one place. Visit us frequently to see who’s writing about crowdsourcing and what are they saying. See who the experts are, follow them, join in the debate let the community know what you know and what you have found that’s interesting. Check out who’s doing it and who’s not! Find out what works and what doesn’t. Discover great sites, thought provoking content and cool videos.Tell the community who you are and what you know. Network with experts in the field, develop your expertise, promote your ideas, provoke debate and share great content.Learn about the explosive growth of crowdsourcing to share ideas, information and content. Search our communities to see how crowdsourcing is being used to create, raise funds, engage customers, innovate, share knowledge, make predictions, promote social and environmental causes. Discover what crowdsourcing tools and platforms are available.Share your knowledge of who's doing what in crowdsourcing by uploading articles, documents, videos, blogs and news posts and also get involved in our gray big and answer forums. Assign your content submissions to the crowdsourcing communities of your choice to make your content easy to find. Educate and inform others and grow your knowledge.Connect and network with others on Crowdsourcing.org, share your knowledge and expertise and learn from others. Join in the dialogue, share your views, interact online with other members. The more active you are the more you will benefit from being part of a network of crowdsourcing followers and experts.

• Does it cost anying?

• Crowdsourcing.org is free for everyone to use. However, there are advertising and sponsorship opportunities. Please contact us to find out more.

• Why should I register?

• Registered members can use the full functionality of the site.

• Visitor features

• Visitors can use many features of the site without registering. Visitors can browse, search and read content, email content to friends, embed content into other sites and share content.

• Member features

• Registered members can access many more features the site has to offer. Members can submit content, comment on other members content, download content, build a profile, import and link to other social networking sites, save content to favorites and manage their content and comments via a personalized profile section.

• Communities

  • What are Communities?

  • We have created a taxonomy based around the concept of “Communities” where content is organized (syndicated) depending on different applications of crowdsourcing. See the next FAQ’s for descriptions of each Community.

  • Creative Community

  • Crowdsource the creative process! Use crowdsourcing to generate new ideas and designs and tap into online communities of thousands of creatives to crowdsource original design concepts. Creativity is powered by originality and originality lives here. In this community explore crowdsourcing applications related to creative communities for photography, travel, advertising, film, TV, video production, graphic design, apparel, consumer goods, information technology and branding.

  • Crowdfunding Community

  • Crowdfunding (sometimes referred to as crowdfinancing or crowdsourced capital) is an approach to raising capital for a new projects and businesses by soliciting micro donations from a large number of stakeholders. Charities and non-profits have long uses this fundraising model in an offline context; however, with the advent of social media, and web 2.0 technologies, crowdfunding has become a viable fundraising mechanism for film, journalism and music in addition to nonprofit organizations.

  • Engagement Community

  • The crowdsourcing engagement community discusses applications of crowdsourcing that help build and nurture community engagement. Crowdsourcing can be used to increase audience engagement and build customer loyalty through online dialogue and brainstorming with customers, or a broader population, to generate ideas and receive feedback on products and services.

  • Innovation Community

  • Crowdsourcing Innovation (sometimes called open innovation) can be used to open the innovation process to generate new ideas from outside the enterprise and find external paths to market. In a world of widely distributed knowledge, where the boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research and ideas to maintain a competitive advantage.

  • Knowledge Community

  • The crowdsourcing knowledge community focuses on crowdsourcing applications for the development and aggregation of knowledge and information. This community includes applications of crowdsourcing for open Q&A, user-generated knowledge systems, news and citizen journalism.

  • Prediction Community

  • The crowdsourcing prediction community is about applications of crowdsourcing focused on harnessing the combined knowledge of the crowd to formulate prediction markets (sometimes known as predictive markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures, event derivatives, or virtual markets) which are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions.

  • Social Community

  • The crowdsourcing social community is about applications of crowdsourcing for social initiatives such as community programs, social production, group organizing, environmental issues, medicine, government and politics and religion. This community explores non-commercial applications of crowdsourcing where individuals or groups are invested in bettering the lives of others and for applications of crowdsourcing that provide a vehicle to distribute information on beliefs, passions and causes.

  • Tools Community

  • The crowdsourcing tools community is the place to look for information and user reviews on crowdsourcing platforms and software applications for entrepreneurs, freelancers and enterprises looking to source work and services via online communities. The crowdsourcing tools community is also the place to search for information and insights (similar to Crowdsourcing.org) that provide information on crowdsourcing.

  • Community Taxonomy

  • As the site grows we will introduce sub-communities under each main community heading. The community taxonomy is provided below. You should use this taxonomy to syndicate your content to a community (e.g. if your content is an article on crowdsourcing R&D then you should syndicate it to the Innovation Community). You should also use the taxonomy sub-community listing for tagging your content (e.g. a blog post on crowdsourced brainstorming should be syndicated to the Engagement Community and the tag "brainstorming" should be included in the tags you select).
  • Innovation:    •    R&D    •    Product Ideas    •    Product Design & OptimizationEngagement:    •    Customer Engagement    •    BrainstormingCreative:    •    Photography    •    Travel    •    Advertising    •    Film/TV/Video    •    Graphic Design    •    Apparel    •    Consumer Goods    •    Information Technology    •    BrandingSocial:     •    The Community    •    Social Production    •    Group Organizing    •    Green    •    Medicine    •    Education    •    Government & Politics    •    Religion Knowledge:    •    Journalism    •    Q & A    •    Market Intelligence    •    InformationPredictionCrowdfundingTools:    •    White Label Platforms    •    Platforms for Entrepreneurs    •    Freelance Platforms    •    Crowdsourcing Information Sites

  • Working with Content

    • How do I submit content?

    • You submit content by selecting the content type you want to submit from the drop down on the Submit Content main menu bar. You can submit a variety of content types, namely: articles, blog entries, documents, site reviews, sponsor sites and videos. Each content type has a unique Add Content page which includes information such as what file types are supported, how to complete the required fields, how to upload screen shots, how to add the content to communities and how to tag content to make it easier to search via the search engine. We've designed Crowdsourcing.org to appeal to content contributors at all levels.

    • Providing the URL to the source

    • By providing a source URL to the source of the content (article, blog post, site, sponsor site and video) the source link is included on the content item view page. This provides a direct link for users to view the content at its source (i.e. your blog or your site).

    • Adding content to Communities

    • Each community provides a description of crowdsourcing applications for each community. Select the communities (up to three) that you think are most relevant to the content you are uploading. For example, if the content is an article on how a particular crowdsourcing site or platform is being used to help engage customers in providing customer feedback you should syndicate the content to the Engagement (customer engagement), Knowledge (customer feedback) and Tools (site or platform) communities. See community definitions in this FAQ set.

    • Content summary text

    • The summary text is the content displayed next to the thumbnail for any given content item. This text is pulled from the "Comment” field that is completed during the content submission process. 

    • What are Tags?

    • When you upload content as well as being asked to add (syndicate) the content to communities you will be asked to select up to 10 search tags, separated by commas. Tags are keywords used to describe your content. Think of tags as words that you would search for if you were looking for a particular article or topic. The site search engine searches for the words or phrases you enter into the search bar in the subject line of the content item and in the tags associated with the content. Adding Tags makes it easier for others to find your content through proper indexing in the site search engine.Please be as accurate as possible when describing and tagging your content. Tags should be separated by commas. Multiple word tags should have a single space between words.Example: (innovation,customers,open collaboration,platforms)

    • What is Editorial Approval?

    • If you request that the editorial team reviews your content we will review your submission and if it meets our high editorial standards we will add an Editor Approved badge for users to see when they view your content. This way your content will stand out and a user can search quickly for content that meets editorial standards.

    • Submit to Twitter

    • If you select “Submit this item to Twitter in addition to Crowdsourcing.org” once you submit your content the system will automatically Tweet your content. Replies to your Tweet will be posted directly into the comments section under your content. By selecting the option to Tweet your content submission Twitter users can link back to your item and your profile on Crowdsourcing.org.

    • When is content posted?

    • If a member submits content onto Crowdsourcing.org it’s posted immediately.

    • Do I still own my content?

    • The copyright owner retains ownership of the content submitted to the site. Crowdsourcing.org will make your content available only for as long as you leave it up on our site.

    • How much content can I submit?

    • There is no limit in aggregate but there is a limit to the number of content items a single member can upload in one hour. We encourage all community members to post content regularly.

    • Can I edit submitted content?

    • Just contact us if you are the owner of the content and want to make changes.

    • Can I delete submitted content?

    • Just contact us if you are the owner of the content and request that we remove the content.

    • Does everyone see my content?

    • Yes, the content you upload is available for anyone to view.

    • Who can comment on my content?

    • Any Member (a registered user) can leave a comment on your content. If you feel your content has received an unjust comment please inform us so we can review and take the appropriate action.

    • Sharing content

    • You have a number of options to share content. You can share content by following a number of methods: emailing to a friend by entering an email address or emailing the item to an existing contact by importing contacts from your email address book, bookmarking and sharing on social media sites, copying and pasting the URL of the content item into a personal email and by embedding the source code on your website or blog.

    • Embedding content

    • If you own a website or a blog you can copy the embed code to embed the content into your site. The embed code is displayed under the “Embed in your site” field. This code can be added directly into your websites source code and will provide a direct link back to the content item page. The “how do I do this” help option link under the embed code provides instructions on how to embed content into your site. You can also use this embed code on other social networking sites so long as you're not violating the terms and conditions of the host site.

    • Using the Site

      • What is "From the Editor"?

      • The “From the Editor” section is a place on the site dedicated to editorial content submitted by our site editor and our editorial team. From time-to-time we will invite guests to contribute editorial content. Editorial content is also served-up as part of a search on any page of the site.

      • Search options

      • From the main menu bar you can select from the drop down menu and search across the whole site or search within a community.

      • Sort options

      • There are a number of ways you can sort content on the site by Most Recent, Highest Rated (the average star rating) and Most Discussed (the number of comments).

      • Filter options

      • You can filter content by content type: articles, documents, videos, presentations, Q&A, editorial content, presentations, blog posts and sites. For example, if you are only looking for videos on crowdsourcing then only the “videos” box should be checked.

      • What is "Ask a gray big"?

      • In addition to submitting content you can submit gray bigs to Crowdsourcing.org. Other members can post answers to your gray bigs or you can answer other members’ gray bigs. gray bigs and answers are served-up during search like any other content item.

      • How does Flagging work?

      • If you believe a content item should be removed from the site you can flag it as inappropriate, junk or spam content or report it for copyright infringement. A flag does not indicate that your content has or will be removed. Our team will review all flagged items and content not conforming to our site Terms of Service will be removed.

      • What videos should I upload?

      • Crowdsourcing.org recognizes the value in using video as a medium to inform, educate, and entertain. The community would love to see relevant videos that provide insights or information on crowdsourcing or that demonstrate how crowdsourcing is being used.

      • Can I import videos?

      • We support the importing of video from YouTube, Vimeo, Revver, Current, Google Video, Yahoo Video and Metacafe.com.

      • Blog Posts

      • Crowdsourcing.org has created a blog import wizard that allows you to import blog posts from third party URLs. Just enter the blog post URL on the blog post “Submit Content” page.

      • Articles and Documents

      • The main difference between the article and document “Submit Content” options is that when you submit an article you are able to provide the URL to the article source code. Articles are intended for news items from other sites. However, you do have the option of saving an article as file and submitting it as a document.If you see a news article or a story on another site that you'd like to post to Crowdsourcing.org, please consult the terms of use for the source site before you post the news item to Crowdsourcing.org. Also, please provide the correct URL so that users are able to access the article at the source site.

      • Contacting other Members

      • You can email any Member using the Crowdsourcing.org internal email system by clicking the 'Send an email' button on the members profile page.

      • Copyright Infringement Policy

      • Please read our Copyright Infringement Policy that can be found in our Terms of Service. You can submit content that you own or that you have permission from the owner to submit as long as the content is compliant with our Terms of Service.

      • Sign-up and Profile

        • How do I sign-up?

        • The “From the Editor” section is a place on the site dedicated to editorial content submitted by our site editor and our editorial team. From time-to-time we will invite guests to contribute editorial content. Editorial content is also served-up as part of a search on any page of the site.

        • How do I build my profile?

        • To add additional information to your Profile page you can import your LinkedIn profile information. Your LinkedIn profile information will display beneath your Crowdsourcing.org profile and user statistics on your Profile page. You can also add links to your facebook and Plaxo profiles.The basic sign-up asks for very limited profile information. Once you have registered you can access your Profile page where you can add additional information to your profile including, for example, your avatar and your company information.

        • Changing or adding to my profile?

        • Users will only see your general profile page and the content you have submitted but when you are logged-in, you will see a number of additional tabs on your profile page that other users will not be able to view. Additional tabs available only to you are: Profile (an edit view not a public view), your Content, your Comments and your Favorites. Here you can search for content items you have submitted and manage your favorites. You add content to your favorites list by selecting the “Add to favorites” button when you are viewing content and you can remove content from your Favorites by selecting “Remove” from your favorites list.