Comments on: Crowdsourcing and Switching Costs

By: Lionel DAVID

Lionel DAVID — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:48:06 +0000

Hello, I’m the founder of a new crowdsourcing company which aims to design new innovative electronic products. This can be a revolution on the manufacturing industry. A well experienced team is already working on that project which is getting a lot of sponsor. Look at the blog to get further details : http://cecrowdsourcing.blogspot.com/. Bookmark this address as we have scheduled to launch an official website by the mid of october for joining this promising community.

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:35:50 +0000

And here’s an interesting (though lengthy) analysis, by a professional historian, of the history entries in the open-source Wikipedia:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/d/42

Notable excerpt:

Wikipedia has even developed its own form of peer review in its debates on whether articles deserve “featured article” status. Those aspiring to have their articles receive that status—given to the best .1 percent of articles as judged by such criteria as completeness, factual accuracy, and good writing—are encouraged to request “peer review” in order to “expose articles to closer scrutiny than they might otherwise receive.”59 Then further public debate decides whether Wikipedians agree on awarding featured article status.

I wonder if the authors who receive featured article status exploit that status in any way?

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:53:40 +0000

I like the explanation by Lerner and Tirole (J Industrial Econ, 2002), which is that open-source programmers do it for the money — i.e., they do get paid, just not right away. Contributing to open-source projects increases one’s reputation for programming skill, which translates into higher future earnings. (Presumably this doesn’t apply to the SETI folks — hello, intrinsic motivation!)

There’s also a good recent survey by Stephen Maurer and Suzanne Scotchmer: http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12148.html. I think they paint a more complicated picture than the Lerner-Tirole story.

By: Teppo

Teppo — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:22:59 +0000

I have yet to see a good theory for why people contribute to “crowd-sourcing” or open source-type activities (perhaps I need to more closely read one of the recent open-source special issues – I think Research Policy had one e.g.). Is it a way to “stick it to the man” (e.g., linux v. microsoft), is it a way to project identity or class – what is it? Is it ‘generalized reciprocity” – meaning that you contribute to some larger common good (golden rule type thing) in hopes of others contributing to you later in other ways (Sheen Levine told me once that there is an early 20th century sociologist who made this type of argument). Anyway, just thinking out loud.