Crowd Sourcing

I heard an interesting news piece yesterday and it seems to me to be part of what i'll call for the purposes of this post, the 'American Idol' effect. I think it's pretty interesting that so many people vote for American Idol, it's an intriguing new element added to reality TV shows.

In a way it's interesting that people have turned to seeing amateurs to get their entertainment, I suppose it's a reaction to overproduced pop music and overwrought plots of modern television (Ie in music and in TV)

The news piece talked about a phenomenon is called "crowd sourcing" apparently a term only recently coined in Wiredmagazine. The idea is that companies outsource their R&D (Research and development) problems to the internet where anybody can try and solve the problem they have for a fee. It also encompases the idea of custom generated content(the example given was a T-shirt company).

In the case of R&D, companies put problems they are having trouble dealing with on a website, and anybody wo has access to the site, mostly scientitsts and engineers, will get a cheque if they can solve the problem. Apparently they have a success rate of 30%.

In the case of the T-shirt company is that people send in designs for a T-shirt then vote on which one they like best, and then the company will produce it. That's the aspect I see as being part of the American Idol effect.

People all of a sudden (or maybe are finally able to express) have this desire for taking part in the creative process. It's almost democratic. However I really think it's a bit silly that people choose to be involved in the production of the clothes they wear or the music they listen to. In a way I can see how it might be considered empowering, but I feel it's trule a nominal impact that you're having.

I think in a way it undermines the craft and the experience of the process.I think it works best for shows like American Idol, because they have so many people who think that can sing. That's the funny part about watching the audition process, so many of these evidently talentless people or to be fair lacking much talent think they are superstars.

In an ingenious way, I think it's also a way mostly for companies to reduce their risk, by essentially pre-screening their talent in the case of American Idol, or products in the case of the T-shirt company. It's also the rise of the amateur which is cheaper to produce or buy off.

The gentlemen on the show quoted a statistic saying that 57% of American teenagers produce some form of media content , music, video, websites etc. It reminds me a bit of a book I read by Hal Niedzviecki called We Want Some too and his later book admitting his view was a bit out of sync with what was going called I'm special: How individuality became the new conformity

People seem to be in touch with this new trend towards amateurization. I think it reduces the quality of what's available, but it does increase the choices I suppose.

I think really presents a bit of a false choice, people want to be involved in the creation of products because they can get more customized and personalized touch, as well as the feeling of having been involved. However a lot of these people do it in their spare time because they aren't really able to make any money out of it. Why can't we get more of these people working better jobs and actually producing this stuff for a living?