Crowdsourcing at AOL Essay

1. Is crowdsourcing, as used by AOL, a form of outsourcing? Why or why not? In a way yes because the work is outsourced to workers away(p) the company itself. The tasks argon not done by companies employees instead the tasks are put on Amazons Mechanical Turk and half a milion workers that are registered thither could read about the tasks and decide if they wanted to manage them. Outsourcig means that the purchase of a god or service that was previously provided internally or that could be provided internally, but is now provided by outsource vendors. This is basicly the case with AOL, they could hire personell to perform the tasks but instead they hired workers extracurricular the company and that is why it is a kind of outsourcing.2. What steps do you destine Maloney might have taken to ensure that the crowdsourcing would be success for the ancestry project?7Maloney broke the large job into micro tasks and set forth the tasks that needed to be done. Each worker was also aske d to find webpages containing a video and identify the videos source and location of those pages.3. What factors should be considered when desiding whether or not to crowdsource a particular part of a profession?A couple of factors should be considered when deciding to crowdsource. One of the factors is the economy itself. As mentioned in question 4, crowdsourcing is usually much cheaper then hiring a professionall to do the tasks for your company, and also you pay when the task is done and take the better(p) option. Hiring a full time professionall or professionalls with special skills can be in truth expensive and you might not need them for a wide current and you also need to manage them.4. Describe the advantages of crowdsourcing.Advantages Main advantages of crowdsourcing is that is fairly wretched price comparing to the proce for hiring a dedicated professional. Also the high itemize of people who are ready to work for you anytime. You also dont need to envise tasks to b e done, instead you get the finished form and then pay for the best option.Disadvantages Cheap labor results less credible product compared to professionals. Also there is no contract in most crowdsourcing cases whichmeans that workers can pull in anytime they want, and your design might be reused in anytime. Also there is rough critics that are saying that crowdsourcing can lead to digital sweatshops where workers work long days with little pay and no benefits and workers might also be underaged. You dont really know who is working for you.