Using Social Media for Global Security

Chapter 7

Introduction to Crowdsourcing

Although crowdsourcing is an old technique, social media technology enables you to crowdsource cheaper, faster, and better. This chapter lays the foundation of Part III of the book, which is dedicated to detailing how to build and run a variety of crowdsourcing platforms for different purposes. The chapter introduces and explores the concept of crowdsourcing and its relationship to social media, details the advantages of doing it, provides a few brief examples of relevant crowdsourcing applications, and explains when and when not to do it.

What Is Crowdsourcing?

So far the book has taught you how to take a more passive approach with regards to social media, namely to consume and analyze social media data. In this chapter you learn how to adopt a more active role, and build and run social media platforms for various purposes through the technique of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing via social media will help you do analysis, and the analysis you conduct will in turn help you crowdsource more effectively.

Crowdsourcing will soon replace social media as the hot new frontier of technology, because it offers tremendous, game-changing opportunities. Understanding crowdsourcing and how to do it will not only place you at the forefront of technology applications, but provide you with the tools to change how you accomplish a variety of missions, from getting community members to help local police identify thieves and murderers to encouraging Afghans to ...