Hasta La Ideas

(Photo: Steve Bartel)

Crowds are known for many things: wisdom, madness, overhauling the market for stock photography. WIRED editor and author Jeff Howe touched on these traits and many more in his presentation yesterday at the Mediabistro Circus. His topic? Crowdsourcing, a term he coined and the title of his 2008 book about “why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business.” Howe showed the below video—worth it for the whimsical visuals alone—to explain the concept to the assembled crowd:

He went on to demonstrate the power of crowdsourcing with examples that spanned multiple industries. Howe pointed to commercial photography, a market that has been transformed in recent years by microstock agencies, as “the canary in the coal mine.” Born in 2000 from founder Bruce Livingstone‘s annoyance at having to pay hundreds of dollars to license a single image, iStockphoto pioneered microstock (and in 2006 was acquired by Getty Images for $50 million). When Livingstone began charging a quarter per image download, he “opened up an ecosystem,” said Howe, who then presented the audience with two photos of fiery sunsets. “Which one do you think cost $300 and which cost a dollar?” A quick poll of the audience revealed an evenly divided crowd. So which photo was which? “You know, I totally forget,” said Howe with a shrug.

continued…