Crowdsourcing

Finished this book up earlier this week and I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed.  I feel as though a book by the man who defined the word ‘crowdsourcing’ should give me more than just anecdotes about how companies have used crowdsourcing.

I’m not disappointed in the content of the book…it was good. As was the writing. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I felt like something was missing.  The book is interesting and a good read…but left me looking for more.

That said, there are some excellent stories of companies using crowdsourcing. There is some excellent ideas is this book, but very little actionable information. Well…except for the last chapter. The last chapter provides some ‘meat’ to the ideas behind crowdsourcing.

Before someone jumps on me for giving this book a bad review…I’m not doing that. I think people should pick up this book and read it, if only for the stories of iStockPhoto and other companies that have used crowdsourcing models.

After reading this book (or before it), take a look at Groundswell.  Groundswell is the book that I’ve been measuring all other books of the genre against.  Comparing Groundswell with Crowdsourcing might be wrong since they do cover different areas…but the comparison is there….and Groundswell comes up on top.

Perhaps Groundswell is higher on my list because it provides more of an analytical look at the social media aspects of business while Crowdsourcing takes a anecdotal approach.

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