Blog Feed: The Microtask blog

“Homicide Watch DC” sounds like a cop drama, and to be honest it’s got the makings of a police procedural (especially for those of us familiar with the 5th season of The Wire). Instead Homicide Watch is a crowdfunded, crowdsourced reporting pro

Will 3D printing and crowdsourcing bring the industrial revolution home?

Published on 2012-11-09 06:41:13

In Europe and the US right now, almost no issue commands more air time than persistently high unemployment rates (other than what Kate Middleton is wearing, of course). But beyond the depressing jobless figures, new trends may be changing labor marke

Of Maps and Men: is Apple relying on us to fix the iPhone 5?

Published on 2012-09-27 06:04:43

As a long-time Apple Fanboy, I’ve done my fair share of preaching from the book of Jobs. But since He passed away/ascended into heaven, many people have been wondering if Apple can continue to delight the world with groundbreaking products. The iPhone 5 was a crucial test for the new leaders of the world’s most [...]

It’s finally here. But does it live up to expectations?

Published on 2012-09-17 06:14:22

On Wednesday last week, after two years of increasingly feverish rumors and speculation, the wait was finally over. All over the world, people stopped what they were doing and tuned in to find out whether it could possibly live up to the hype. The answer, my friends, is an emphatic “yes.” Slim enough to fit [...]

Designed intelligence: how experts can help the crowd

Published on 2012-09-12 03:30:23

What is wisdom? It seems like a simple question, but as any Dungeons and Dragons player knows, there is a difference between wisdom and intelligence. Legendary D&D creator (and awesomely named dude) Gary Gygax explained the distinction: Intelligence is noticing that it’s raining. Wisdom is putting up an umbrella. The wisdom of crowds effect has [...]

Crowdfunding the future: Mad science, bad science, and the Tesla Museum

Published on 2012-09-05 03:54:04

As the original mad scientist, Nikola Tesla has been a source of inspiration to geeks of all types for over a century. The Serbian-American electro-wizard transformed the world with his development of alternating current (and inspired direct current supporter Thomas Edison to electrocute an elephant), before vanishing into madness and obscurity. If you’re interested in [...]

When crowdsourcing goes wrong: Lessons in crowd control

Published on 2012-08-29 05:01:41

If the Discovery Channel ever makes a documentary called When Crowdsourcing Goes Wrong, I suggest you watch it. I say this partly because, as you probably know by now, our industry is full of eye candy. After all, there’s no better way to tone up for summer than working long hours in front of a [...]

Summer Blockbuster, in cinemas now: The Document Processing Knight Rises

Published on 2012-08-21 09:40:14

As regular readers of this blog know, there is nothing we like more than discussing strange and new types of crowdsourcing. From weird music-related experiments to the incidence of expressions such as “I need to” during the Mad Men era, we try to keep you informed with what is going on across our industry. Every [...]

Search me: what Mad Men and brave moles can do for historical records

Published on 2012-08-15 10:08:16

Ever since we began helping the National Library of Finland correct mistakes in its old newspaper archive, I have noticed myself developing a slightly anti social interest in historical texts. I say ‘anti social’ because of its effect on conversation: what I have found is that while most people claim to be interested in history, [...]

See hear: crowdsourced subtitles for everyday life

Published on 2012-08-09 07:55:27

As anyone who has watched a few movies with unofficial subtitles will know, quality control can be a bit of an issue. But even in the world of terrible, inaccurate subtitles, nothing comes close to the awful poetry that is Star War the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West (better known as Star Wars Episode [...]

Crowdfunding donations: Is giving me your money a good idea?

Published on 2012-08-01 05:48:24

When people ask me “What’s your dream holiday?” I usually lie to them. I say some exotic holiday destination that makes me sound normal. I don’t say space or the moon or the bottom of the sea, because I’m nervous it might make me sound like a dreamer or full of myself. Which I am [...]

Rate me baby one more time: crowdsourcing the perfect song

Published on 2012-07-13 05:41:46

Music is a powerful thing. It can make you laugh or cry, and even tear down the Berlin Wall (according to David Hasselhoff, anyway). The same song can mean different things to different people, with infectious tracks like Britney Spears’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ managing to be both the all-time most requested song [...]

Trillion Fund: where normal people can invest (and save the world)

Published on 2012-07-05 08:04:22

Last week we discussed the new JOBS Act, which allows startups in the US to use online crowds to raise funding. We noted the huge potential this has for not just the crowdfunding industry and startups, but the investment world as a whole. One platform that is planning to take advantage of these new laws [...]

Could equity based crowdfunding pay for your retirement (and save the world)?

Published on 2012-06-27 06:13:06

So, you have a bit of spare cash you want to invest. You’re not Warren Buffet (if you are, please reply to my emails), but you’re interested in where this money goes and of course the returns that come from it. If all goes well, one day it may fund part of your retirement. That [...]

Short Stories About Tiny Tasks: the Microtask Book

Published on 2012-06-17 23:00:33

Since we began writing this blog in late 2009, crowdsourcing had grown from a little known concept into the core of a respectable, mainstream industry (in spite of all our efforts to be rebellious and disruptive). We had many goals for the blog when we started it. Along with making us look cool, we hoped [...]

What Wizard Battles Can Teach Us About Crowdsourcing

Published on 2012-06-13 03:09:03

I’d like to start with a confession: when I’m not thinking about crowdsourcing, I’m busy being a huge geek. Not trendy geek chic, unfortunately, but the old fashioned type (a trendsetter maybe?). Read on bearing this in mind. My main vice is Magic: the Gathering, a role-play card game where players are magically-dueling wizards. The [...]

Predicting the Facebook IPO: The crowd gets it wrong

Published on 2012-06-06 00:30:47

An excess of confidence can be a dangerous thing. As Mark Zuckerberg ponders the jagged descent of Facebook’s share price and industry analysts scramble to explain the social network’s woes, the aura of optimism that heralded the Facebook IPO has evaporated. So how did it all go so wrong? One clue may lie in the [...]

7 degrees of failure: Is the power of the crowd overrated?

Published on 2012-05-30 07:07:55

As anyone who has ever wandered the aisles of an airport bookstore knows, the world today is a flat and shrinking global village (with a long tail), where everyone is friends with Kevin Bacon. Those of us who spend our time immersed in the hyper-connected world that crowdsourcing inhabits find this all very plausible. But [...]

An Eye for the Eye: Mapping Retinal Neurons with the Crowd

Published on 2012-05-23 06:07:51

If you’ve ever had a close encounter of the lamppost kind you’ll know that the eye can sometimes deceive us. But considering just how complex the eye is you might think it would let us down more often. You may remember from your high school biology classes that basically (very basically) light enters the eye [...]

Crowdopolis 2012

Published on 2012-05-17 05:35:16

What are you planning to do on July 19th? “Laying on a beach sipping a mojito” could be an answer, the wrong one. What we really want to hear is “I’m attending Crowdopolis 2012 in Los Angeles”. See? It wasn’t that hard, and we heard conferences are even easier on your skin. Quick recap: that [...]

Picture this: introducing the Descriptive Camera

Published on 2012-05-16 06:36:42

Photography has come a long way. Two centuries ago taking a family photo meant standing perfectly still for ten minutes in a pose stiffer than a waxed mustache. Now we’ve all got multi-megapixel cameras built into our phones (or cans of processed meat), and if we want that scratchy sepia look without the waiting around, [...]

Can crowdsourcing be used as a tool for evil?

Published on 2012-05-09 05:39:48

A recent interview on Daily Crowdsource with Manuel Cebrian (you might remember him from such groundbreaking crowdsourcing projects as 2009’s DARPA Red Balloon Challenge and last month’s Tag Challenge) about crowdsourcing and crime got me thinking. It occurred to me that the Joker from The Dark Knight may be the first ever super-villain to use [...]

Welcome to the Open Ministry

Published on 2012-05-02 05:40:03

After casually revolutionizing the worlds of design, data-processing and translation, the crowd is now getting to work on the business of government. Iceland is preparing to implement a crowdsourced constitution, and this March the Finnish Parliament passed the Citizens’ Initiative Act. The Act allows any citizen to present a law to Parliament, providing they can [...]

Cracking the code: The crowd vs the virus

Published on 2012-04-25 05:06:52

Today’s blog involves a thrilling tale of international espionage. But for once the hero is not an alcoholic, sex-addicted Englishman with a fancy exploding pen. This time it’s a rather remarkable crowd. So before you read further, please ensure that your Cone of Silence has been activated, and that nobody has cut any eye holes [...]

Power from the people: crowdsourcing the constitution

Published on 2012-04-18 03:14:27

To a crowdsourcing evangelist like me, the idea of a crowdsourced nation sounds like heaven on earth. Just think: a country where the wisdom of crowds trumps the ulterior motives of politicians, and the people rule supreme. But despite my limitless optimism, I can’t help thinking that the people are also responsible for littering, traffic [...]

Free from the chains: how crowdfunding is changing game development

Published on 2012-04-11 00:00:22

For most new ventures, the funding process is the most malignant of the many necessary evils they have to overcome. For months, if not years, they must devote a huge portion of their resources towards one single goal: getting enough cash to carry on operations. When funders are enlightened and things go right, the payback [...]

Keep Watching the Iron Skies!

Published on 2012-04-04 02:33:09

Forget about global warming, zombie apocalypses, Mayan prophecies and asteroid impacts. Those things are all absurd. What you should be worried about is an impending invasion by moon Nazis. They’re up there, in their secret moon base waiting to return to Earth and complete their plans for world domination. That’s according to the plot of [...]

Kony 2012: the crowd to the rescue?

Published on 2012-03-28 03:14:26

Unless you’re a solitary hermit with no Facebook friends, you’ll have seen the Kony 2012 film, which racked up an astonishing 70m hits in its first week. You may also have heard the criticisms of Invisible Children, the charity behind the film, and read the charity’s response to its critics. Leaving aside these issues, the [...]

When stupid beats smart: the power of collective ignorance

Published on 2012-03-21 04:56:07

The human brain is an amazing thing. A few pounds of gray matter has taken us from eating bananas in the trees to walking on the moon (it’s also brought us LOLcats, the Car Laptop Tray and Maailmanennätys muurahaispesässä, but still: the moon). With our heads filled with crackling synapses, it’s easy to feel smug [...]

Microtask Backstage: our CEO Ville Miettinen featured on FounderLY

Published on 2012-03-16 04:10:06

The other day our beloved galactic emperor CEO Ville Miettinen was featured in an interview published by FounderLY, a website dedicated to entrepreneurs who have founded potentially disruptive tech companies. In these two videos, Ville gives in insight into how Microtask got to where it is today: the idea inception, its evolution, the early days, [...]

Could crowd-driven think tanks be weapons of mass instruction?

Published on 2012-03-14 04:16:49

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase ‘think tank’? A passionately engaged team of experts, using their knowledge to shape the social discourse? A bunch of overeducated technocrats with no experience of the real world, dictating our futures? A telepathically-operated war machine? Whatever your opinion, think tanks – or policy research units – [...]

Manufacturing success: how to use crowdsourcing to enhance innovation and product development

Published on 2012-03-07 06:29:34

Since the global financial crisis, rich countries have increasingly come to see manufacturing as a reliable driver of growth. Globalization, of course, means that it is more difficult than ever for rich countries to compete with developing countries in this sector of the economy. In this environment, crowdsourcing is increasingly recognized as a good way [...]

Duolingo Beta put to the test: can you learn a language while translating the web?

Published on 2012-02-29 05:59:55

A while ago, while trying to avoid some work, I watched this TED presentation by Luis von Ahn. While his name might not ring a bell for everyone, his legacy definitely will: he is the guy behind reCAPTCHA, the bot-blocking service that uses all of us to help digitize the archives of The New York [...]

Happily ever after: how bored workers and their bosses can benefit from crowdsourcing

Published on 2012-02-23 04:44:13

With its mysterious, often invisible army of workers diligently completing tasks and solving problems, it is understandable that the media sometimes treat crowdsourcing almost like a fairytale industry. Recently, however, our friends at CrowdControl have begun to tear down our carefully cultivated air of magic and mystery with new research on the demographics of digital [...]

Hey! You! Get off my crowd: is crowdsourcing becoming a meaningless buzzword?

Published on 2012-02-20 06:13:55

Over the last few months, I have been spending more and more time in the US, doing my best to soak up the famous American culture (while rushing between meetings). Of course, regardless of what country you live in, one event which you cannot escape is the Super Bowl: that special time of year, when [...]

Space Peas and Holy Toast: Why Pattern Recognition is Humanity’s Killer App

Published on 2012-02-15 05:25:08

People are strange. We look for faces and animals in clouds, we spot Michael Jackson in a greasy roasting dish, and we pay tens of thousands of dollars for pieces of toast that resemble the Virgin Mary (personally, I think it looks more like Michael Jackson, but I admit that I am not a qualified [...]

My advice to Newt: use the crowd

Published on 2012-02-09 06:53:20

Ever since he exploded onto our screens as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, it was clear (at least to 8 year olds like me) that Newt Gingrich would one day go places. True to my (utterly fictitious) predictions, if you read the news at the moment there is no escaping him and his good [...]

The land that time forgot: How crowdsourcing can help bring Cuba into the 21st Century

Published on 2012-02-06 06:05:10

With its beautiful crumbling buildings and vintage motor cars, spicy culture and rich history, few countries excite the imagination like Cuba. Over the Christmas break I visited this tiny island that occupies such a large place in world culture and history. Explaining the country of Castro is probably impossible, but triumphant Socialism or the white [...]

From millions of tasks to thousands of jobs: Bringing digital work to the developing world

Published on 2012-02-01 02:10:41

Every country in the world has probably benefited in some way from the unprecedented access to knowledge and services brought about by the digital revolution. But producing the knowledge banks and services has so far been a predominately rich-country business. The world’s poorest countries have generally not been able to participate in the production side [...]

Banking on one another: Can the crowd save itself from the banks?

Published on 2012-01-26 04:54:55

First they lend too much, cause a financial meltdown and need bailing out. Now they don’t lend enough (unless share-options and fat bonuses count as lending). As any former Wall St inhabitant, election-year politician or self-respecting Hollywood celebrity will tell you: banks are pure evil. Personally, I quite like the banking system as a whole. [...]

Food52: a recipe for crowdsourcing success?

Published on 2012-01-22 23:00:13

Take the following ingredients: . Two award-winning cookery writers. . One eager food-loving crowd. . A sprinkling of game mechanics. Mix them all together and what do get? Answer: Food52. Founded in 2009 by New York Times journalists Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, the site is described as a “social hub for people who love [...]

Confidence tricks: can crowdsourcing keep our feet on the ground?

Published on 2012-01-18 05:40:05

Charles Darwin once wrote that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” Despite how far society has progressed since this was written, it seems as relevant now as it ever was. Whether it’s refusing to stop and ask for directions because we’re sure we know the right way (only to find ourselves lost in [...]

Better shred than read: DARPA uses competitive crowdsourcing to revive destroyed documents

Published on 2012-01-12 06:26:06

As if things weren’t already hard enough for them, crooked bankers , deposed dictators and international super villains have one more thing to worry about. Having spent their last hours of freedom shredding incriminating evidence into neat strips, they might have thought they could get away with their misdeeds. It turns out however that those [...]

The Great War Archive: could crowd conscription help?

Published on 2012-01-09 05:50:13

At this time of year, it often seems like people in the media industry are still too full/hungover from Christmas and New Year’s over-indulgence to do any real work. Filling the newspapers are either stories remembering the year just ended, or nostalgic human-interest stories. Seeing as we have already reflected on 2011, we decided it [...]

2011: the year the future became history?

Published on 2011-12-24 02:35:02

Looking back, this year seems set to enter the history books as a year of upheaval: from natural disasters such as the Japanese tsunami, to the economic turmoil in the EU and US, to the more positive chaos in the Middle East. Amidst the booming tech industry, we at Microtask have often felt insulated from [...]

Crowdsourcing and machine translation: the start of a beautiful friendship

Published on 2011-06-30 00:26:28

Machine-aided translation is one of those things people love to hate. Despite the best efforts of enthusiasts like myself, the majority of computer users still believe that machines are useless translators. The whole area of machine translation has a

Crowdconvention 2011: a designer’s tale

Published on 2011-06-27 03:11:24

To most people, summer equals sunshine, holidays and over-budgeted action movies. But to the crowdsourcing industry, summer means one thing only: convention season is finally here. As Microtask’s senior designer I spend most of the year stuck at a

Rookie or real player? The rise of Seth Priebatsch

Published on 2011-06-22 06:58:34

He’s 22, he wears a lot of orange and he wants to build a game layer on top of the world. I’m talking, of course, about Seth Priebatsch. Founder and “chief ninja” of location-based gaming service SCVNGR, Priebatsch is the medi

The secrets of Digitalkoot: Lessons learned crowdsourcing data entry to 50,000 people (for free)

Published on 2011-06-16 03:39:47

As many of you will know, a few months ago Microtask and the National Library of Finland launched a project called Digitalkoot. Being the first Microtask-powered public service, Digitalkoot was a huge test for our crowdsourcing platform, the use of v

Crowdsourcing: an ancient Finnish tradition?

Published on 2011-06-13 05:50:55

Crowdsourcing is generally considered to be a modern invention. Like many people, I first came across the term in Jeff Howe’s 2006 article The Rise of Crowdsourcing. I was impressed by Jeff’s ideas, but reading the article I began to thin

VizWiz: what the crowd sees is what you get

Published on 2011-06-09 02:00:27

For most people the phrase “I just couldn’t live without my iPhone/ Android/ Blackberry” is just a figure of speech. We might love (or in the case of Apple fanboys, worship) our gadgets but the majority of us would probably still fu

For a fistful of dollars: the weird and wonderful world of Fiverr

Published on 2011-06-06 04:15:32

Living in Finland it’s easy to become anesthetized to the real value of money. After a few years, prices that used to seem unbelievable become perfectly normal (“€6 for a piece of carrot cake, sure that sounds reasonable”). So unt

Crowdsourcing Forums, a Daily appointment

Published on 2011-06-01 01:30:28

Since The Daily Crowdsource launched last summer, it has quickly evolved to become the home for crowdsourcing news and information: a comprehensive site for news, crowdsourcing tools, and internationally renowned Crowd Leaders. The Daily Crowdsource

Down on MyFarm: gamification goes rural

Published on 2011-05-26 04:43:39

Picture the pioneers of gamification. Trend-leaders, people who are prepared to really “get their hands dirty” promoting online engagement. Who do you see? A fast-talking baby-faced Princeton drop-out? A well-groomed San Francisco game-de

Distributed work and data security: can the crowd keep a secret?

Published on 2011-05-23 03:24:28

In these post-WikiLeaks days, many people (and governments) might argue the only way to keep data confidential is to keep it offline. After all, the web was designed to link and share information. Online, as Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy onc

Crowdsourcing global development: working theories

Published on 2011-05-18 01:43:50

What do Madonna, the Chinese Government and crowdsourcing all have in common? Answer: a complex and sometimes controversial relationship with the developing world. Take the much quoted statistic that 33% of workers on Mechanical Turk are located in I

Microtask: we love the forms you hate

Published on 2011-05-11 02:34:03

Paper forms are the bane of the modern workplace. They clutter-up our wireless, iPad-glass-and-steel offices like ghosts of the pre-digital past. As well as ruining the décor, forms are a terrible way to store data (just try “quick sortingR

Microtask: we love the forms you hate

Published on 2011-05-11 02:34:03

A (cryptic) case for the crowd

Published on 2011-05-09 01:47:08

An unsolved murder. An unbreakable cipher. Baffled police issue a desperate plea: can anybody out there crack this code? It sounds like fiction, right? Just add Matt Damon, a car chase and a deadlocked high-security vault, and you’ve got a guar

A (cryptic) case for the crowd

Published on 2011-05-09 01:47:08

2011: a crowded year

Published on 2011-05-04 02:14:08

Over the past couple of years the growth of the crowdsourcing industry has been fast and furious. The term “crowdsourcing” itself now covers an ever-increasing number of sub-categories. From microwork to gamesourcing, from open innovation

2011: a crowded year

Published on 2011-05-04 02:14:08

Gaming the system: how rewards affect performance

Published on 2011-04-28 02:33:12

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to define. Everyone knows what a game is, but agreeing on a definition is another story. Wikipedia’s no-nonsense entry defines a game as: “structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment&

Gaming the system: how rewards affect performance

Published on 2011-04-28 02:33:12

War Games (or how the US military learned to love the crowd)

Published on 2011-04-26 03:33:09

Question: where do you work if you: a) are a genius, b) are too crazy for NASA and c) really like blowing stuff up? Answer: DARPA. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a $3 billion budget, a remit to “create lasting revolutionar

War Games (or how the US military learned to love the crowd)

Published on 2011-04-26 03:33:09

Crowdsourcing vs privacy: do we know too much?

Published on 2011-04-18 04:30:10

Back in the 1950s, the U.S. writer Louis Kronenberger famously complained that TV had “given privacy its death blow.”. The pronouncement turned out to be a little premature. It’s hard to imagine what Kronenberger would have said abo

Speaking in tongues: how the crowd is transforming translation

Published on 2011-04-12 06:39:14

Ever since the first letter was chiseled out of a stone tablet, people have needed to translate text into other languages. And while keyboards are somewhat faster than chisels, the hassle involved in translating text hasn’t changed much since Moses

Too cool to play: the gamification backlash

Published on 2011-04-11 03:06:59

In high school life was simple (brutal, but simple): popularity equaled coolness. As my math teacher would say, the relationship had both correlation and dependence (for some reason A marks in statistics class failed to improve my social status). Pos

Searching Questions: how good is Google?

Published on 2011-04-06 02:53:50

Do you remember the first time you used Google? The white screen, the goofy logo, the incomprehensible “I’m feeling lucky” button. What did you search for? (if you were a teenage boy, don’t answer that). In the bad old days of

Lost in the Virtual Economy? Here’s a map

Published on 2011-04-06 02:23:48

Every day we hear more about goldfarming, crowdsourcing, distributed work and other areas of the so-called “virtual economy”. As with any industry in its infancy, exactly what is meant by these terms is unclear, and rapidly evolving. (If you find

Science and the “Nobel” art of gaming

Published on 2011-03-31 05:53:44

As regular readers will know, here at Microtask we love a bit of science fun. Back in November we blogged about Foldit, a freely-available online protein-folding game. Foldit players contribute directly to scientific discovery: the more proteins they

After the quake: crowdsourcing Japan

Published on 2011-03-28 02:49:13

A massive earthquake, a tsunami and a potential nuclear meltdown. The crisis in Japan is like a disaster movie. Only the “special effects” are real and Bruce Willis isn’t going to parachute in and save the day. Scientists can now (m

SpeakerText: serious about subtitles

Published on 2011-03-23 08:19:30

The 1980s was a strange decade. An era of big business, big hair and really big mobile phones. It was also the golden age of the VHS video player. Thanks to a cutting edge piece of technology called the rewind button, we could enjoy classic scenes fr

GDC 2011: Angry birds, happy Finns

Published on 2011-03-21 04:32:15

For people in the far north of the world, this is a great time of year. The long winter is drawing to a close, and promise of summer is in the air. For some of us, who spend long hours indoors gazing into a computer screen, this time of year is excit

Libya, liberation and the crowd

Published on 2011-03-17 08:34:33

The recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have taught the world a lot about people power. Depressingly, they’ve also shown how easy it is for a crazy dictator to shut down the internet. At the time of writing, Libya is still almost t

Crowd funding: a monumental achievement

Published on 2011-03-14 03:16:20

Detroit is a tough town, down on its luck. First there was the fall of the US motor industry, then a global financial meltdown. Thousands of people have left the city. Many neighborhoods are now derelict – populated only by violent gangs, wild dogs

Read all about it! Crowd makes the news

Published on 2011-03-10 03:00:38

“Researchers have always wondered what made hit songs, books and movies, just that, hits. What they’ve found is that quality had only little to do with it.” At first glance, these 27 words look fairly ordinary. An interesting idea, but hardly r

A ticket to play

Published on 2011-03-07 04:02:54

San Francisco is a great place to be a geek. The city is home to hundreds of startups including big names like Twitter, Craigslist and Zynga. Silicon Valley itself is just 50km round the bay. Every year thousands of tech-seeking tourists cross the Go

Testing Times

Published on 2011-03-02 03:51:52

Like life, love and the lottery, making mobile phone apps is a gamble. Play your cards right and you’ve got Angry Birds. Get it wrong and your app is left in the store with a two star rating, gathering virtual dust. Back when Apple’s iPhone had a

Africa online 2011: The mobile continent

Published on 2011-02-28 03:25:44

According to a recent article in the Economist, in most African countries more people have a mobile phone than a bank account. In technologically advanced Kenya, over 50% of the population now owns a mobile. A friend of mine who used to live in Mali

Grandma knows best: experiments in distributed education

Published on 2011-02-24 01:52:33

Last year, in a terrible blow to national pride, Finland dropped from first to third place in a global survey of child literacy. The study ranked Finnish students below those in Shanghai and South Korea. Many people blame excessive technology for the

Language Lessons: translating the global conversation

Published on 2011-02-21 03:19:13

Over the years, computers have come a long way from being humble adding machines. These days hardware is lightweight and good looking, while some software is so sophisticated it practically comes with Michelin stars. Despite all this progress, one a

Online brands: Everything you expected?

Published on 2011-02-16 08:44:15

“The best way to avoid disappointment is to lower your expectations.” Brand perception is big business. Many reputation consultants, digital boutiques and ad agencies are paid to improve the opinions, mental pictures and expectations people form

Crowdsource a country clean? Yes we can.

Published on 2011-02-14 03:20:55

Going on vacation to a beautiful beach can be depressing. No matter how secluded you are, littering the coastline will be the evidence that we are trashing our planet. As global consumption spirals upwards, personal responsibility seems to be at an a

The reluctant crowdsourcer: a decade of Wikipedia

Published on 2011-02-11 01:12:02

There’s something hard to resist about Wikipedia. Like a giant, virtual fact-monster, the site sucks you in and won’t let go. You click over for a quick fact check – to find out the year eBay was founded, say – and suddenly it’s thirty minu

Digitalkoot: crowdsourcing Finnish Cultural Heritage

Published on 2011-02-07 16:01:54

Many years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, specialization and Justin Bieber changed human existence forever, jobs requiring many hands brought communities together. In Finland, building a house was once such a job. The collective effort was ca

Net cops: cybercrime and the crowd

Published on 2011-02-03 02:56:37

No doubt about it, Hollywood loves a hacker. On the big screen, your average cyber-nut is a cool (suspiciously good-looking) loner with the kind of IQ Albert Einstein would envy. “Good” hackers – Neo from the Matrix or Acid Burn (aka a very fre

Bribes and Prejudice: India’s crowdsourcing revolution

Published on 2011-01-31 02:19:52

If there’s one thing that unites people the world over, it’s complaining about politicians. Whether you’re black or white, old or young, right or left there’s nothing quite as human as having a good moan about the people in charge. At Microta

E-petitions: a vote for the future?

Published on 2011-01-27 03:15:57

Generally in life, I’m as upbeat and optimistic as the next guy (as long as the next guy’s another world-weary net geek). But when it comes to government crowdsourcing initiatives, I gotta admit, my cynicism radar starts to twitch. Like an out of

The Travelling Salesman is back – Part 2

Published on 2011-01-24 01:38:16

Recently, the ever-intrepid Kristoffer Lawson talked about the first part of his journey in search of the most promising Nordic tech startups. We featured his adventures on the Swedish and Norwegian scene, along with how it feels to drive around Ume

Smartsheet: the deadliest app in town?

Published on 2011-01-20 03:10:54

The “killer app” is the dream of every rookie software designer. A program that’s so brilliant, so niche-bustingly successful, it spawns a whole new industry. When people talk about the history of personal computing the spotlight tends to focus

The Travelling Salesman is back – Part 1

Published on 2011-01-17 02:33:12

In October 2010, we left Kristoffer Lawson with his plan to visit Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark in search of promising tech startups. After many vicissitudes, the trip is now over and he’s back. With a presentation held the 16th of D

Crowdsourcing crime part II: the net has eyes

Published on 2011-01-14 02:45:20

Along with tea, politeness and Prince William, one of the things the U.K is famous for is CCTV. These days the streets and shopping malls of London are heaving with surveillance cameras. Nobody knows how many there are, but it’s generally agreed Br

Crowdsourcing: amateur and proud

Published on 2011-01-10 05:45:10

Other than politicians and bankers, few types of people come in for as much abuse as amateurs. The word itself is practically an insult: a goal gets fumbled, an actor forgets his lines and what time is it? Amateur hour. Maybe it’s just me, but a gu

Bringing anarchy to the creative process – When distributed work meets interesting web content

Published on 2011-01-06 06:00:24

Tommaso: Ida, would you like to write a blog post for us, sharing your ideas on crowdsourcing? Ida: Sure, sounds good! I already have a few thoughts… Two weeks later. The first idea that pops into my head is a text written like a ninth grade “cre

I Plead Not Guilty

Published on 2011-01-03 09:40:01

After a holiday season rich in the joys of eating, drinking and general overindulgence, I sometimes feel a tad glum. The obvious cause is my body telling me to ease up on the rich food (I’m convinced the alcohol has nothing to do with it), but for

Online Marketing

Blog Feed: The Microtask blog

Home > Blog Directory > Newest Posts > Blog Feed: The Microtask blog