The Myth of Crowdsourcing - Crowds don't innovate--individuals do

The recent coverage of the $1 million Netflix prize was rightly heralded as a victory for crowdsourcing. The competition was designed to create a better algorithm for recommending films. But in the popular press, and in the minds of millions of people, the word crowdsourcing has created an illusion that there is a crowd that solves problems better than individuals. For the past 10 years, the buzz around open source has created a similar false impression. The notion of crowds creating solutions appeals to our desire to believe that working together we can do anything, but in terms of innovation it is just ridiculous.

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