Crowdsourcing in the Era of Digitalization: Technologies and Platforms for Collaborative Creation

The traditional path for creating products, services, or content involves the work of an internal or external team tasked with executing project assignments. This is a proven method but one that is limited by the knowledge, skills, and experience of the group members, as well as the budget constraints set by the client. Since the early 2000s, a new method — crowdsourcing — has emerged.

This approach involves engaging an unlimited number of people in the joint implementation of projects. In simple terms, crowdsourcing is the creation of a product through "mass participation."

In this article, we will explore in detail what this concept means, the advantages and unique aspects of this approach, provide crowdsourcing examples, and examine how the method can be applied in marketing.

What is crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the process of completing tasks for a project by various people who are not regular employees or contractors of the business (the client). These tasks may be performed voluntarily or for a small fee. The word crowdsourcing is a combination of two terms: crowd and sourcing, reflecting the philosophy of leveraging collective intelligence.

The process involves a client (a business) who makes project tasks accessible on a specialized platform or their own resources and invites participants to solve them. Participants complete the tasks and provide solutions.

Crowdsourcing is used for:

• product development;
• generating ideas for business and marketing;
• conducting marketing research;
• testing products;
• creating content.

This concept differs from outsourcing, which involves hiring external specialists to solve tasks under a contract and for payment. It is also distinct from crowdfunding, which involves raising funds for a project without participation in its execution.

The significance of crowdsourcing globally

The crowdsourcing model provides greater opportunities for creating and improving products, as collective intelligence is always more powerful than a small group of people. Participants with diverse perspectives can point out unconventional solutions and identify errors in development. For this reason, crowdsourcing is widely used worldwide, especially for creating large-scale projects that would be unlikely to materialize if managed by a single team. The method's growing popularity is evidenced by the fact that the crowdsourcing software market is expanding every year and is projected to reach $3.02 billion by 2030, almost double its size in 2023 ($1.47 billion).

The most well-known crowdsourcing project is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, collaboratively and voluntarily created by users since 2001. Anyone can become a contributor on the platform, and today, this online collaboration has resulted in more than 63 million articles.

Digitalization and crowdsourcing

The concept of crowdsourcing emerged during the era when the world entered an active phase of digitalization in the early 21st century. Although similar principles had been applied throughout history, any pre-digital examples of crowdsourcing lacked the resources for large-scale communication, making widespread implementation impossible. Today, hundreds or even thousands of people can be engaged to generate ideas.

The term "crowdsourcing" first appeared in journalist Jeff Howe's article The Rise of Crowdsourcing in 2006, though the foundations of the method were laid earlier. In the 2000s, the concept of "open innovation" was introduced, emphasizing that the development of new products and technologies should involve both internal and external resources. Around the same time, James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds promoted the idea that solving problems as a group is more effective than relying on an individual.

Digitalization has enabled the practical application of crowdsourcing for generating ideas. Today, this method is used by a variety of organizations worldwide, including private companies, political entities, and commercial institutions.

Advantages of crowdsourcing

The method of involving a broad range of people in a project offers the following benefits:

• Fresh and unexpected ideas for creating, improving, and promoting a product. The more options are considered, the greater the chance of receiving original suggestions.
• Cost savings in product development, as participants may contribute out of enthusiasm. In contrast, outsourcing teams always require payment.
• Enhancements to existing products, boosting their competitiveness and, as a result, increasing sales.
• Faster task completion. A group of people can complete tasks more quickly than a single employee.
• Improved brand image and reputation. Engaging an audience by seeking their opinions builds trust.
• Broader audience reach and geographic distribution of the product. Crowdsourcing participants from different regions and countries may become potential customers, thanks to the online nature of these projects.
• Talent discovery. Creators of the best ideas and solutions can be invited to join the company as permanent employees.

Principles of Crowdsourcing

To implement a project through crowdsourcing effectively, it is essential to follow these principles:

Openness of tasks to specialists with diverse skills and experiences, allowing anyone to try their hand. At the same time, participants must meet the qualification requirements necessary to complete the tasks.

Scalability. The project can include specialists from various cities and countries without restrictions.

Voluntary or minimal compensation. The concept of crowdsourcing is primarily based on the work of enthusiasts. While payment is possible, it should not be comparable to the fees of hired employees or outsourced workers.

Audience engagement. Tasks are performed by individuals who are primarily motivated to contribute to the creation or improvement of a product, rather than seeking material gain.

Task fragmentation. Crowdsourcing assignments are divided into smaller parts that collectively form a large and multi-stage project.

Technologies for crowdsourcing

Global crowdsourcing has become possible thanks to the development of IT technologies, which have made this approach accessible to millions of people. Additionally, data processing capabilities obtained through this method are also evolving.

Which IT capabilities facilitate crowdsourcing:

Cloud technologies. Crowdsourcing platforms primarily store information in the cloud, saving resources for clients and simplifying interaction with users.

Artificial intelligence. Crowdsourcing attracts people for an essential stage of AI training — data labeling. This involves humans verifying the results generated by neural networks, such as determining whether an image or handwritten text is recognized correctly. A separate area of AI application in crowdsourcing is HITL (Human-in-the-loop). This approach provides real-time feedback from humans who verify the accuracy of neural network actions.

In the future, AI could match tasks to crowdsourcing participants by aligning assignments with their skills. It could also oversee the quality of completed work.

Blockchain. This technology enhances the transparency and security of crowdsourcing platforms. Data is stored in a decentralized system and protected against breaches. Blockchain can be used to create digital identifiers that record the entire history of their usage. The technology also ensures secure and transparent payments without intermediaries and allows for cryptocurrency transactions.

Crowdsourcing platforms

Crowdsourcing typically involves dedicated platforms where clients post their tasks. The process then includes selecting performers and evaluating the results after completion. Large companies sometimes create their own resources. Let’s look at some popular crowdsourcing platforms.

GitHub

A resource for finding collaborative ideas and solutions as well as testing IT projects. Developers upload elements of source code, icons, and images for their projects into specific folders (repositories). Other users can submit commits — changes made in a separate branch (a copy of the repository). Additionally, the project owner has access to all edits and comments. Users can also propose their ideas for changes through pull requests.

CrowdFlower

A platform for working with data through crowdsourcing. Users perform tasks such as cleaning, labeling, and refining information. They check search relevance, annotate images, perform real-time transcriptions, and moderate content. The platform is particularly useful for building machine learning models.

GoDesigner

A crowdsourcing platform for organizing contests for designers and other creative professionals. The client describes the idea and sets reward options. Participants submit their concepts, and the best one is chosen. Further discussions and refinements take place directly with the creator.

Mechanical Turk

A marketplace for completing a wide variety of tasks, from data verification and research to content moderation and participation in surveys. The platform adheres to crowdsourcing principles by breaking down project tasks into smaller parts and allowing people worldwide to participate, ensuring scalability.

HeroX

A crowdsourcing service that enables the launch of competitions to address various challenges across a wide audience. Requests can range from product development and innovations to social and environmental issues. The platform offers tools for creating and managing competitions, as well as a feature for awarding prizes.

Crowdsourcing for Marketing

Marketers use crowdsourcing to address a variety of tasks:

Audience research. Through surveys, questionnaires, and feedback collection, brands can gather new information about the needs and preferences of potential customers, as well as insights to improve products and services. This data can later be used to build an effective marketing strategy.

Increasing audience engagement with the brand. Inviting people to participate in solving brand-related tasks, such as choosing a new slogan, helps build trust, boost activity, and even attract new customers who were previously unaware of the company.

Testing hypotheses and products. Crowdsourcing can identify effective solutions for content sent through email marketing services, product features, and more. Based on the results, improvements can be made where needed.

Content creation and idea generation. Brands gain fresh ideas through contests for video creation, design development, post and article writing, music composition, and more. User-generated content is also utilized in the company's social media to promote products and services.

How to implement crowdsourcing in marketing and other projects

Crowdsourcing projects can be launched independently through your own resources (suitable for large companies with significant budgets) or using specialized platforms, as discussed earlier.

How to launch a crowdsourcing campaign:

1. Define the goal. Determine the tasks that need to be addressed and the deadlines. Crowdsourcing can be a one-time project or an ongoing process, such as when content moderation or data processing is a continuous requirement for the business.
2. Set audience parameters. Identify the target group who will complete the tasks, as well as the required number of participants, which can be crucial for certain objectives. For example, marketing research results are only relevant when a sufficient number of respondents are surveyed.
3. Choose the format of the crowdsourcing campaign. Decide whether the campaign will involve task assignments, surveys, contests, or other forms.
4. Prepare project materials and provide clear instructions. Clearly describe what participants are expected to do and explain why their contribution is important.
5. Outline incentives for participants. Motivations can range from appealing to users’ desire to help improve a product, offering gifts, or providing monetary rewards, depending on the complexity of the tasks.
6. Publish your assignments on the chosen platform and collect the results.

Summary

Crowdsourcing involves delegating certain project tasks to external individuals either without payment or for modest compensation. This method has been actively evolving in the digital age as it expands opportunities for generating new ideas, testing and improving products, creating content, increasing audience engagement, and saving budgets on employee wages. People’s participation in online projects provides access to collective intelligence, which has proven to be highly effective.

Crowdsourcing leverages cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, enhancing task performance outcomes and accelerating information processing. To engage participants in crowdsourcing projects, companies use their own resources or specialized platforms such as GitHub, CrowdFlower, Mechanical Turk, HeroX, and others.

For marketers, working with external specialists involves generating new ideas, studying the audience, creating content, and testing hypotheses. To successfully run a crowdsourcing project, it is important to define its goal and the target audience to attract. It is also necessary to clearly explain what needs to be done and motivate participants to complete the tasks at hand.