Again: Innovation Happens Elsewhere? - The rise of CrowdSourcing

这次在别处的与开源没有直接关系，而是一个有趣的名词 - CrowdSourcing，中文译名为众包。这个名词是今年6月份美国<连线>杂志记者Jeff Howe在一篇报道中提出的，之后就像所有一样cool的网络词汇一样迅速火热起来，WikiPedia对此的定义(Howe自己加的)为:

“It describes a business model akin to outsourcing. The difference is that instead of professional vendors, crowdsourcing relies upon unpaid or low-paid amateurs who use their spare time to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D. Crowds targeted for crowdsourcing include data companies, such as Jigsaw, garage scientists, amateur videographers, freelancers, photo enthusiasts, smart mobs and the electronic herd....While not a new idea, it is becoming mainstream. Open source projects are a form of crowdsourcing that has existed for years. ” 恩，久违的开源终于出现了。

与外包强调的剥离非核心业务(术业有专攻)不同，众包强调diversity带来的创新潜力(即使这种diversity并不代表专业)。开源可以说是众包一个特殊化形式，k68则已经将这种模式商业化并且开始赚钱，只是这种模式还太简单，还没有能够出现和Linux, Mozilla甚至Spring代码规模相提并论的标的，但这不代表将来不会有。既然群众们可以在猫扑上Kuso出超越星爷的无厘头，既然后舍男孩可以从网络自拍(恩，这个词也代表了部分有众包潜质的行业)成功营销了自己，为什么不能有更多的价值在网络上被创造？Howe的文章中提到，iStockphoto已经创造了生产力，开源软件更不用说，让我们拭目以待，与开源浪潮一样火热的外包是不是终将被淹没在人民战争的汪洋大海。恩，这就是传说中by the people, for the people的web 3.0么？ "三个臭皮匠顶个诸葛亮"的草根时代终于要到来了么？