People are creative by nature and will seek to better their environment. This theory applies to the objects and services we encounter in consumer society. If asked we will give input to make things better. Given the right environment, the crowd can undertake tremendous tasks.

Contests

Probably the most simple and oldest crowdsourcing tool. Contests are simply the promise of a prize for solving a problem.

Examples:

• In 1714, British Parliament established a prize of £20,000 to anyone who could accurately determine the position of a ship by longitude. John Harrison, a working class joiner from Lincolnshire who had scant formal education built and repaired clocks in his spare time. Mr. Harrison won the longitude prize by producing the first portable and reasonably accurate chronometer. He took on the scientific establishment of his time and won the prize through his gifted mechanical insight and pure determination.
• Niagara Suspension Bridge (1847). Engineers on the project were out of ideas on how to get the first line strung between the US and Canada. The 800 foot gorge under Niagara Falls could not traversed by boat (the typical method), other ideas included: shooting arrows with lines attached, rockets, cannons, etc. A steel worker suggested a kite contest to deliver the line. The bridge company accepted the contest idea, and a fifteen year-old boy by the name of Homan Walsh won the contest by landing his kite on the opposite side. This crowdsourced project cost the bridge company a grand total of $10.
• Netflix Prize. In October 2006, Netflix announced it would give 1 million dollars to whomever created a movie-recommending algorithm 10 percent better than its own, opening its database in the process. Over 8,000 teams are competing for the prize: University of Toronto, Budapest University, AT&T labs, Princeton University, University of Toronto. Gavin Potter AKA “Just a guy in a garage”, a British psychologist and his high school senior daughter are currently the winning entrants. Potter claims the key to his success is the rest of the mathematicians and statisticians in the contest suffer from groupthink. Their models do not take into account human behavior. Netflix has enjoyed tremendous press regarding the contest and already improved its recommendation service 8.5%.
  

Ideagora

Literally a marketplace for ideas. Ideagoras function as extended staff to an organization. When an organization encounters a problem that can not be addressed by internal staff, because of time constraints or talent, the ideagora serves as an open call to qualified people who can solve the problem. Typically ideagoras consist of detailed problem statement, a reward for solving the problem, and in some cases an area for people to exchange information or team up to collaboratively solve the problem.

Open Source

Open source software is created by many programmers who share a common need (e.g., a better operating system). Programmers work on small aspects of a project and when complete, offer the package to the general public without typical restrictions of proprietary software. Users can copy and change the software to their own needs.

The operating principles of the open source movement also relate to crowdsourcing: many people working in an open environment, new features are added democratically, resultant output is available to the general public.

Examples:

• Linux operating system
• Firefox web browser