You've probably already heard about crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and CrowdFlower which offer anyone the ability to employ thousands of humans to perform on demand micro-assignments at pennies per task. But does crowdsourcing even work? What value can thousands of dislocated clicks really provide? Is this really the future of online labor? In this panel we’ll be examining the topic of crowdsourcing, the crowdsourced labor market, and the entrepreneurial and creative opportunities made possible by “human APIs.” We’ll also tackle some of the newest innovations in crowdsourcing such as virtual labor for virtual goods where Farmville and other MMPOG gamers are awarded in-game currency for doing real-world microwork such as tagging photos and filling out surveys. However there's growing concern that these Farmville migrant workers are being unfairly exploited. This is further complicated by the fact that many of them happen to be minors. But does it even make sense to equivocate their work with “normal” labor? Are there really people living in developing nations that live hand-to-mouth on their income from crowdsourcing? Finally, what are the regulatory and social considerations that we can expect in the future for this space?
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP6333
