Crowdsourcing Applications

Crowdsourcing is the phenomenon of obtaining information from a large group for the purpose of answering a question or providing a service. The use of crowdsourcing has popped up in a wide range of circumstances and is currently being used in a vast number of ways.

Although this is a trend that has grown spectacularly with the increasing technological ability to source large groups of people online, it is by no means only a recent occurrence. When the Oxford English Dictionary was first published, it was through the work of thousands and thousands of contributions from individuals around the globe who sent in slips of paper containing words, definitions, and quotations from texts. (For those interested in further reading on the chronicles of this endeavor, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester is an entertaining read.)

More recently, crowdsourcing has moved into the realm of smartphone applications. With the prevalence of smartphones around the world, a shift is occurring in the ways that individuals can interact and communicate. Smartphones have allowed for a greater connectivity among individuals and a larger pool from which information can be sourced. In the instance of crowdsource-based apps, the purpose of crowdsourcing is to provide a service to it’s users.

There’s a difference, it seems, between a crowd working together collectively to come up with an answer, and the members of the crowd working individually to come up with answers that can then be taken collectively and averaged. The “wisdom of crowds”, according to Surowiecki, only works when diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization, and aggregation are all present conditions within the crowd. Smartphone applications allow independent users to provide information, reach users on a global scale, and collate the data into a service that the users can then benefit from.

For example, the Waze application is a crowdsourced traffic app that allows users to “share real-time traffic and road info” which is then overlaid onto a map. Users can then see where along their commute traffic has slowed, if there have been accidents, and even the prices of gas at nearby gas stations.

Crowdsource-based applications can also help with more serious real-world problems. In a recent article in Newsweek, Eric Smillie discusses the uses of a recently developed smartphone app called MyShake. 

The purpose of the app is to provide an early warning system for earthquakes. MyShake runs in the background of a smartphone, gleaning information off of the accelerometer already present in the device. The application uses an algorithm that can separate the usual movement of the device from the vibrations of an earthquake. Once the device detects the presence of earthquake vibrations, it sends a signal to a main server which then collates all the data. If enough devices send the signal to the server, then the earthquake is confirmed and a warning can be sent to every smartphone user who has the application. Depending on their distance from the epicenter of the earthquake, this application can give users a few fractions of a second to minutes warning allowing them to find shelter. Additionally, an early warning system can provide notification to physical entities that can be disrupted by an earthquake such as trains and elevators.

Although similar services can be accessed through resources that are based on expert knowledge rather than community gathered data, it is often the case that those services cannot reach every user who could benefit or do not reflect the most current and up to date information. Applications like MyShake rely on the widespread use of smartphones globally and the input from the millions of users which grants applications the necessary data to make certain services available or to provide answers to questions. Without the ability to collect such large amounts of data from a diverse and substantial cross section of users-- crowdsourcing at its most basic-- the knowledge and services would not exist on such a scale or with any reliability.

For more examples of crowdsource-based applications, look here.



Discussion:

What other day to day activities can crowdsource-based applications be applied to?

Do you think that crowdsourced applications are particularly reliable? Why or why not?

Do you tend to use any crowdsourced applications such as Waze? What do you like or dislike about them?





References:

"MyShake." 2015. <http://myshake.berkeley.edu/>


Shadbolt, Peter. "The 11 most amazing crowdsourcing apps - CNN.com." 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/13/tech/mobile/tomorrow-transformed-crowdsourcing-apps/>


Smillie, Eric. "Crowdsourcing Earthquake Detection With an App Could Save Lives in Developing Countries" 2016. <http://www.newsweek.com/2016/03/04/myshake-android-app-earthquake-detection-earthquake-warning-system-426052.html>


Surowiecki, James. 2004. The Wisdom of Crowds. <http://wisdomofcrowds.blogspot.com/>


"Waze." 2009. <https://www.waze.com/>