Crowdsourcing

I came across this term, while reading an article about Google Earth in the Economist. You will find a full definition here, but in short it is the throwing open of a job traditionally done by the organisation, to the general public. The content of Wikipedia, for example, gets built by members and the enthusiasts, rather than by employees. Members contribution of location specific information to Google earth is making it more information rich.

As the web becomes a part of our daily routine, and web communities come up around shared interests, content is becoming more and more democratised with individuals sharing the knowledge, ideas and viewpoints with the rest of the world.

But with the explosion of content comes the difficulty of managing it and finding what one needs. This has given rise to folksonomies (derived from the words folks and taxonomy) which allow user to tag and rate content, so that other users can find what they need. Users can now tag content and create social bookmarks using del.icio.us, digg it and reddit.

Will Web 2.0 one day completely bypass traditional media ? Only time can tell. But the times ahead are definitely interesting.