Competing with or Against Crowds

March 26, 2018

Read The Full Prompt

In this module we have examined how firms can leverage digital technologies to harness the power of collective intelligence from the crowds to create value and capture value. For this assignment you have three options:

1 – Pick one industry where no firms have leveraged crowds, and come up with a crowd-based business model that may potentially transform the industry. Describe how you plan to create and capture value. Explain why the crowd will participate, and why your crowd-based model is better than the current model employed by the incumbents.

2 – Describe a company that is using crowds (external or internal) in an innovative manner. Describe how they incentivize participation and manage the crowd. What are the challenges? Describe how value creation and value capture occur, and the growth potential of this business.

3 – Companies often struggle with crowds as well. Describe failed crowdsourcing efforts and explain how and why the company failed. Given what you have learned in the course, what would you do differently?

Create an approximately 500-750 word post at d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit to make your contribution by 6pm on March 26. Please create appropriate tags for your post. Please also respond to and comment on three other posts per module before class. Feel free to use graphics, data, videos and links to other sites to corroborate your points.

Submitted (84)

Patreon: Creators, Come Get Paid
MM
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 1:25 pm
A crowdfunding platform, Patreon supports the arts by modernizing the patronage system of yore.
“Activist mapping” at Ushahidi
Crystal
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:42 pm
How a non-profit tech company is combining crowdsourcing, citizen journalism and geospatial information to drive social activism and public accountability
BeMyEye: Data Driven Field Marketing
JSG
Posted on March 25, 2018 at 5:18 pm
BeMyEye is allowing companies to crowdsource in-store data
Quantopian: Leveraging the Crowd to Generate Alpha
jessica
Posted on March 25, 2018 at 10:58 pm
Quantopian enables anyone to build their own trading algorithm and win prizes for performance. In addition to providing a platform for creating and testing trading algorithms, Quantopian puts capital allocation in their own fund behind successful user created algorithms, sharing [...]
Topcoder: An Original Platform for Crowdsourcing Solutions
EAP
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:35 pm
Topcoder is a platform that host the world’s largest community of competitive designers, developers, and data scientists to offer on-demand crowdsourcing solutions to its clients.
Lufax: The World’s Largest P2P Lending is Pivoting from Core Business
DM
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 6:41 pm
Lufax: The World’s Largest P2P Lending is Pivoting from Core Business
PledgeMusic: A Way for Fans to Participate in Album Creation
SLA
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 11:57 am
PledgeMusic, a direct-to-fan funding platform for music artists, hopes to create a closer connection between musicians and fans by providing unique experiences in exchange for pledging to artist campaigns.
From Citizens-Connect to Connected Citizens
Jean Grey
Last modified on March 27, 2018 at 3:04 pm
For too long government-citizen interactions have been disconnected. Every once in a while, in a democratic system, people would go to the polls and express their preferences by electing representatives and delegating in these individuals a lot of power until [...]
Musical.ly: democratizing content creation for younger generation
Call Me By Your Name
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 4:30 pm
Musical.ly is a video social media platform for video creation, sharing, discovering and live broadcasting. Through the app, users can create 15-second to 1-minute videos and choose sound tracks to accompany them, use different speed options (time-lapse, fast, normal, slow [...]
Desginhill: Crowdsourcing in Graphic Design
Carlfuda
Posted on March 26, 2018 at 12:04 pm
Designhill allows freelance designers to connect with businesses looking to outsource design work.
Vigilante App: What Happens when Ordinary Citizens Take Crime Fighting into their Own Hands?
Cyou
Posted on March 25, 2018 at 4:22 pm
While the app’s crowdsourcing platform has brought more transparency and crime awareness for local residents, it has also raised deeper concerns and doubts around the idea of crowdsourced vigilantism.
OpenIDEO: A Platform to Harness Collaboration for Social Good
D
Last modified on March 26, 2018 at 5:56 pm
A few years ago, IDEO launched Open IDEO, a crowdsourcing platform where people from across the world can collaborate to solve tough global issues. [1] We’ll explore how OpenIDEO is using crowds to generate value, and the challenges it may [...]
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