Crowdsourcing, angel or devil?

I decided to select the course "Social Networking" when I took the first lesson as it impressed me a lot.Professor Rosanna Chan taught us the definition of social networking and social media.I found I began to have access to some social networking sites like Weibo.com and Renren.com long long ago. From the lectures, I came to know the difference between social network and social networking------Social network is a social structure constructed by specific types of interdependency while social networking involves some action.

During the past two lectures, I'm interested in several topics. Among which is the concept of "Crowdsourcing".It was until lecture 2 that I came to know its meaning.Crowdsourcing means a corporate or an institute poses a problem to a crowd of users and get their ideas which can't be solved through computation.I still remember the description by Processor Chan that crowdsourcing is just the "stupid "computer can't do while only human can finish.

In lecture 2, a classmate introduced the famous site http://www.zhubajie.com/ which apparently a good example of crowdsourcing. People can publish all kinds of needs on the websites and all the users can offer a good solution to get the rewards.

Then I want to say that SougouInput is also a very good example nationwide.They collect the design of skins and the cell word libraries from all the internet users.This is also a very successful case of crowdsoucing.Try to imagine how can the professional designers design tens of thousands of skins in limited time.But with the strength of the masses,the skins of SougouInput are always in the update, and maybe the designs from some ordinary people happen to cater to the taste of the others.So,as I conclude,crowdsourcing contains the concept of collaborative innovation by the masses.

The following pictures show some skins designed by the ordinary online users instead of the company's designer, but they are still very cute and maybe a lot of  people will like them,and maybe one designer will never has the ability to design so many skins in different styles.

But as far as I'm concerned,crowdsourcing have pros and cons.The advantages are obvious and thus I want to express some opinions about its disadvantages.

First of all, crowdsourcing can cause a vicious competition.Some users don't care the cash rewards,but treasure the accumulation of experience value which will help them to be selected by more companies in the future.In order to get the chances being selected, they may be willing to do it at much lower price than the task really worth.And the kind of phenomenon will also affect other users online.

The second obvious disadvantage I think is that this kind of commercial operation mode will waste human resources.Everyone who is interested in this project may devote his time into finishing it,but in the end, the companies only need the best one, and no matter how good the others' idea is, they won't pay.Sometimes everyone is devoted in one project while the other tasks don't attract anyone.So I think crowdsourcing may sometimes cause bilateral lose.

Last but not the least, some volunteers may worry about the company's credit rating.They may think no one would know if the project sponsors never really give out the rewards to the participant or maybe they just give the rewards to the insider.

In general, crowdsourcing will not only help the corporate promote efficiency and cost savings but also give the customers diversified choices.if all the online networking sites can avoid the disadvantages and let it be a healthy operation environment, crowdsourcing can really be regarded as a new effective business model.