crowdsourcing can save a life, but it mostly takes cool ideas from people

I don't have much to write about for Chapter 6. It discusses more of Lanier's concerns and complaints. He better start giving us some suggestions because I'm finding myself saying, "I know, I know... We're doomed."

Lanier discusses how investors don't value human creativity by paying to create new content--tv shows, movies, books, and music--because they can crowdsource for free. They can rely on "the chattering of the crowd within itself" to create free content.

When content is crowdsourced, the creator essentially gives up all rights related to their content, and gives it to the parent website. The parent site has a lot to gain from the work of others, including profits. It can be argued that the “content would be worthless without the parent site, but to that same effect, the site would also be worthless without its content.” More rights issues come up when the content published online is turned into a book or used for other merchandise.

Jaremy Rich, from virology.com, says, “crowdsourced content is created by users with no likely desire for fame or fortune. It's the equivalent of volunteering at a church or non-profit. However, a company IS making a profit off of this content.” While it's true that, in many cases, people are participating because they enjoy being creative; however, sometimes the content is extremely profitable.

For example, the website - icanhascheezburger - relies on content from users: lolcats (funny pictures of cats with captions). There is also an interactive element with users ranking the photos. This website receives hundreds of submissions per day, while it only posts about a dozen. There are a number of successful books. There is also a network of related popular crowdsourced websites, including loldogs, failblog, failbook, and engrish funny. These sites have millions of hits per day, and there are huge revenues because of the user-generated content

There are ways user-generated content can be successful, profitable, but somehow less profit oriented.

One of my favourite websites is postsecret.com. Creator, Frank Warren, says it started in 2004 as a “creative prank” when he bought 3000 blank post cards and put his address on them with an invitation to “artistically share their deepest secret on a postcard and mail it to [him], anonymously.” Frank left them in random places all over the city, and he was surprised when he received 100 in the mail.

He had the first postsecret art exhibit and created his blog. He was surprised with the overwhelming response because after that, they kept coming in. Now, he has received millions of postcards, and his blog has received over 350 million hits. He has published five books and tours the world for postsecret art exhibits and events.

The user-generated content in this case is essential to the essence of the project. The act of sharing the secret is both healing and empowering to the creator. The secrets are inspirational for the readers and give hope to people who identify with them. The anonymity of the secrets is important because it creates a sense of unity within the online community.

The reason I say this very successful use of crowdsourcing is different than most is because Frank Warren donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities and help lines. His work creates awareness for many mental health issues. He reads a lot of dark secrets with themes of suicide, self-harm and depression, and he is doing everything he can to raise awareness and financially assist the channels of support offered.

One really inspiring example of how social media and readers of postsecret came together is when one secret said that the anonymous writer plans to commit suicide this summer by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco this summer. With no way to contact the anonymous writer, people created a facebook page called, “Please don't jump.” There are almost 20 000 members and 500 photos with the same message: please don't jump.

So, I mean, really the crowdsourcing using the internet isn't all bad. Yeah, you probably won't make money (unless you're somehow the lord of a profitable cloud). And yeah, don't give away your awesome content and time for free unless you're getting something out of it (like having fun or personal healing or marks for a class or something).

(The quote from Frank Warren is from the introduction of one of his books, PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death & God.)