Since I covered coworking earlier this month I wanted to add another tech term to the mix, Crowdsourcing?
“Crowdsourcing” is a neologism for a business model in which a company or institution takes a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsources it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call over the Internet. (via wikipedia)
I recently read an article, Citizen Journalism Wants You! and how Assignment Zero is creating an open source movement that connects journalists with the public. It’s an interesting idea, but I rather enjoy getting my news from various sources, it allows for variety. It’s interesting to see how digg, reddit, and del.icio.us cover similar stories on a daily basis, but there are subtle differences. If you take a look at popurls, you can see what I mean during the day.
Since you know how much of a news junky I am, I find it hard to believe that Assignment Zero will take off and become this mecca of news. Digg has its place, but is still being controlled by a few rather then a majority.
Looking at this battle from a business perspective; reddit (recently bought by wired) is trying to smash digg, but can’t. Bringing a new website might help add to this battle, but people on the blogosphere get there news from many sources and not just one. The idea around the blogsphere is to get the point of view from others and read news covered on varies websites/blogs/podcast/etc and not just one. I find that news gets old fast and that we need to stop trying to group it in one site, but create a dynamic site that fetches news from all over and reorganizes it for us, like a web 3.0 version of spotback.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Hmmm. I don’t think you understand what Assignment Zero is. I’m the executive editor of it, and I started NewAssignment.Net. We’re not trying to be “this mecca of news,” or your one stop on the Net for all your news needs, or anything remotely like that. We agree that people get their news from many sources– and should.
The purpose of our site is to figure out whether lots of people can work together on one story, and achieve higher standards for quality and comprehensiveness than a few.