The Phenomenon of Crowdsourcing

Hi Stuart, Michael's comment is spot on (and congrats on an excellent offering in cS). Having recently launched a similar venture , based rather on the sourcing of Ideas and not production ready work, we are finding that price is not an issue, but rather the value placed on the Idea. There is a lot of debate around spec work and how it drives down the quality of the end product due to short term engagements. Our feeling is that the incentive will dictate the quality of work (as in cS) and that as long as you educate your creatives around what each is getting (incentive) and giving up (IP if their work is bought) then its a fair and transparent market. Offerings like cS and Idea Bounty are going to challenge traditional agency models for creating creative product and I look forward to being along for the ride. Cheers, Matt http://ideabounty.com/

Hi Stuart, Michael's comment is spot on (and congrats on an excellent offering in cS). Having recently launched a similar venture , based rather on the sourcing of Ideas and not production ready work, we are finding that price is not an issue, but rather the value placed on the Idea. There is a lot of debate around spec work and how it drives down the quality of the end product due to short term engagements. Our feeling is that the incentive will dictate the quality of work (as in cS) and that as long as you educate your creatives around what each is getting (incentive) and giving up (IP if their work is bought) then its a fair and transparent market. Offerings like cS and Idea Bounty are going to challenge traditional agency models for creating creative product and I look forward to being along for the ride. Cheers, Matt http://ideabounty.com/

Hi Stuart, Michael's comment is spot on (and congrats on an excellent offering in cS). Having recently launched a similar venture , based rather on the sourcing of Ideas and not production ready work, we are finding that price is not an issue, but rather the value placed on the Idea. There is a lot of debate around spec work and how it drives down the quality of the end product due to short term engagements. Our feeling is that the incentive will dictate the quality of work (as in cS) and that as long as you educate your creatives around what each is getting (incentive) and giving up (IP if their work is bought) then its a fair and transparent market. Offerings like cS and Idea Bounty are going to challenge traditional agency models for creating creative product and I look forward to being along for the ride. Cheers, Matt http://ideabounty.com/

Hi Stuart, Michael's comment is spot on (and congrats on an excellent offering in cS). Having recently launched a similar venture , based rather on the sourcing of Ideas and not production ready work, we are finding that price is not an issue, but rather the value placed on the Idea. There is a lot of debate around spec work and how it drives down the quality of the end product due to short term engagements. Our feeling is that the incentive will dictate the quality of work (as in cS) and that as long as you educate your creatives around what each is getting (incentive) and giving up (IP if their work is bought) then its a fair and transparent market. Offerings like cS and Idea Bounty are going to challenge traditional agency models for creating creative product and I look forward to being along for the ride. Cheers, Matt http://ideabounty.com/

I've had better luck with 99designs. They have 3 times as many designers... Hell, even CrowdSPRING got their logo from 99designs: http://99designs.com/contests/321

Hi Mike, Thanks for clarifying :) You were able to articulate the dynamic/advantage of your competitive pricing (that benefits the freelancers) of crowdSPRING. I think my readers will appreciate this distinction/clarification. Thanks for stopping by :)

Hi Stuart, Thanks so much for the kind words - we are so proud of crowdSPRING and the community of creatives we we are growing (over 10,000 strong in 6 months!). I sis want to respond to one part of your post. You mention “race to the bottom” pricing and I wanted to talk about this a bit. An interesting effect of our model is actually the constant UPWARD pressure on pricing. I'll explain: on a traditional freelance marketplace (such as Elance or Guru) the providers are competing on price, always attempting to undercut the competition in order to win the job. Our model flips this: on cS it is the buyers who are competing for the attention of the provider (in order to get more and better entries) and one easy way to get the creative's attention is to offer more than the other buyers. We have seen average project value increase consistently since day one, in large part due to this dynamic. Anyhow, thanks again for the post - we are looking forward to seeing you around the site! Best, Mike Samson co-Founder http://crowdspring.com