Crowdsourcing a Better World

I have to admit I didn't know too much about crowdsourcing until we started talking more in-depth about it in class. The idea works well for fundraising and promotional ideas (like the Maroon5 song), but I thought it was really interesting how people are using it to solve serious crises in real-time. This NY Times article talks about how crowdsource sites like japanstatus.com and geigercrowd.net are popping up for people to get information on radiation levels in certain areas. Apparently people were frustrated with official sources of information, complaining that what they heard was bland or vague, and were looking for specific information about specific areas.

Another great example is from Kenya, where the crisis crowdsource site Ushahidi.com was developed to map reports of 2008 post-election violence and destruction. The site has since been used to organize volunteers in the Haiti earthquake, track election fraud in Mexico and map road obstacles in DC's own 2010 Snowmageddon! The article is a pretty good read, I recommend checking it out.

Opera by You

The Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland is crowdsourcing an opera for its 2012 season through a new project: “Opera By You 2012.” Any member of the web community can contribute to the creation of an opera – helping to create the story, write the libretto, compose the music, and design the sets and costumes – from beginning to end. Savonlinna is providing the performers, the crew, and an orchestra for the final production, which will premiere at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in summer 2012. Here’s a link to their site. (Make sure to click “English” on the top right.) They are using a collaborative film production platform called Wreckamovie.com.

This is the first time an opera company has utilized crowdsourcing technology to create a new opera, so it will be interesting to see whether Savonlinna is successful at attracting new audiences (and holding on to them) and whether other opera companies will replicate the process.