I'd have to be honest, but I had never heard of "crowdsoursing" until I read the articles assigned by the professor. I thought it's a pretty cool idea that they came up with, but there's many people who are against the idea of crowdsoursing.In Jeff Howe's article, he talked about how crowdsoursing is evil for artists. For what I understood, he thinks that companies take advantage of artists and designers because they can get their works done way cheaper by holding a "design contest" than asking the professional designers to do their work. The company name the winner and it receive the design in exchange with fairly small amount of prize money. Critiques argue that it's taking designer's job away, ruining the industry.
Although it makes sense in a way, I would have to counter-argue this thought. I think that critiques who make these argument don't realize that the people who apply to these "design contests" are not the professional artists, or yet to become professional artists. Those might be the people who wants to share their talent with others or companies that are willing to use their work. Those might be the people who have other jobs but does designing for fun, and looking for a chance to give it a try in those contests. Professional artist have works other than here, and I believe that people who enter those contests do it for leisure. Design contests where everywhere before the term "croudsoursing" appealed. It's the technology that boosted up the phenomenon.
+Photo Credit+
http://www.masternewmedia.org/online_marketing/user-generated-marketing/web20-user-generated-marketing-crowdsourcing-online-marketing-strategy-20070530.htm
Yeah I thought Howe was a bit harsh on crowdsourcing as well. These contests, besides getting fresh new ideas, also provide an opportunity for people who are not working in design to break into the industry. If they win, they can show off the design they did and maybe become a professional.
ReplyDeleteI think applicants' creative mind is great, and your writing is very persuasive. However, it is also true that in the real world with unlimited competence, using their creation as cost of reputation named by companies are also prevailed.
ReplyDeleteI think applicants' creative mind is great, and your writing is very persuasive. However, it is also true that in the real world with unlimited competence, using people's creation as cost of reputation named by companies are also prevailed. This is becuase many people want to get actual results to get a job, like getting a prize in a contest sponsored by companies, and companies want to gather ideas as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI believe that crowdsourcing IS very harsh on artists and designers, but at the same time it allows for the freer spread of art, media, and ideas.
ReplyDeleteTake stock photos, for example. Like Howe says, stock photo professionals were drastically affected, but how many people do you know who *made* a living selling stock photos??? Instead think of all the thousands of people who can submit their own fresh ideas and the millions of new stock photos as a result!
Crowdsourcing hurts the pros but pleases the John Doe's! (catchy huh??)