Wired 14.06: The Rise of Crowdsourcing. Remember outsourcing?
Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D. By Jeff HowePage 1 of 4 next » 1. The Professional Story Tools Story Images Click thumbnails for full-size image: Claudia Menashe needed pictures of sick people. In October 2004, she ran across a stock photo collection by Mark Harmel, a freelance photographer living in Manhattan Beach, California. The National Health Museum has grand plans to occupy a spot on the National Mall in Washington by 2012, but for now it’s a fledgling institution with little money. After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent.
He can’t, of course. It took a while for Harmel to recognize what was happening. How Big Can Apple Get? - February 21, 2005. Back from near oblivion, Apple is setting the pace in a new digital universe where computing and entertainment merge.
We asked Steve Jobs how he did it (hint: It's the software, stupid) and what's next. (FORTUNE Magazine) – "My God, there really has been a genie locked in that bottle! Apple's innovation and creativity have been unleashed in a way that they haven't been in 20 years. Look at the results. This isn't a company about 5% market share; this is a company that is capable of competing with world-class competitors and achieving market shares of 65%, 70%, and even 90%. " Steve Jobs, the silver-tongued king of Apple Computer, is explaining how the world's opinion of his company has risen with the triumph of the iPod. Apple's recent achievements, in fact, make it look as if it is walking on water.
The DNA may not have changed, but the external transformation is dramatic. Steve being Steve, he's doing this partly because he's selling something. Steve Helps Himself Triumph of the iPod. Big Blue's World Jam. When Big Blue holds an online meeting, you know it's going to be, well, big: 53,000 visits to the home page, 6,000 employee comments and replies posted, 6 million (that's right, million) hits — in just three days.
Known as “World Jam,” IBM's May 21 to 24, event started out as a “scientific experiment of what happens when you invite 300,000 people online,” says Jonathan Spira, chairman and chief analyst at Basex, a New York firm that specializes in online communities and knowledge management. It turned into a highly publicized event that many other companies are interested in re-creating for themselves. And some, like Spira, predict that it will forever change the future of large corporate meetings. Samuel J. Palmisano: Fix the Bridges But Don't Forget Broadband.