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I agree, but the more important thing that this article needs to emphasize is the difference between crowdsourcing and crowdserfing. Waze is using the crowd to

I agree, but the more important thing that this article needs to emphasize is the difference between crowdsourcing and crowdserfing. Waze is using the crowd to hoard data about traffic, that you can use for one specific purpose (avoiding traffic) but for science its nearly useless. Want to understand traffic accidents based on the design of highways? you're out of luck with Waze data. All that the crowd is doing is making Google rich. We definitely need open source software to power these platforms. But whats more important is to keep the work of the crowd in the open. But maintaining data servers, reliable access and developing features takes developers and time -- how was fund that work? that is the real challenge.

doppenhe 13y ago
Great blog post jacob. Thanks for the read. To Daleks point on aligning incentives I think this is crucial to the success of any crowd-sourcing platform. One of the things we are doing at Algorithmia.com is trying to provide a lot of the value add around the source code, so that the source itself can remain open yet paying users still have a reason to come to the platform (and the algorithm developers can get paid). I think doing this is possible in almost every crowdsourcing platform the trick is to find those value adds are. Its on the platform creators to build something that is worth paying for yet still allows being open with whatever it is that you are crowd-sourcing - data, code, etc.
- dalek2point3 13y ago
  Great point and glad to hear about Algortihmia. In my own domain of mapping data, I see something similar. OpenStreetMap users put in the fundamental data openly, and firms then value-add using nice routing design, apps etc to compete on the product market and make money. It usually works out just fine. Also would love an invite! My email is dalek2point3 AT gmail

doppenhe 13y ago

Great blog post jacob. Thanks for the read. To Daleks point on aligning incentives I think this is crucial to the success of any crowd-sourcing platform. One of the things we are doing at Algorithmia.com is trying to provide a lot of the value add around the source code, so that the source itself can remain open yet paying users still have a reason to come to the platform (and the algorithm developers can get paid). I think doing this is possible in almost every crowdsourcing platform the trick is to find those value adds are. Its on the platform creators to build something that is worth paying for yet still allows being open with whatever it is that you are crowd-sourcing - data, code, etc.

dalek2point3 13y ago
Great point and glad to hear about Algortihmia. In my own domain of mapping data, I see something similar. OpenStreetMap users put in the fundamental data openly, and firms then value-add using nice routing design, apps etc to compete on the product market and make money. It usually works out just fine. Also would love an invite! My email is dalek2point3 AT gmail