crowdsourcing india

Unilever to boost reliance on crowdsourcing through expanded eYeka partnership

crowdsourcingindia — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:39:54 +0000

Aiming to engage creative consumers to provide ideas for marketing campaigns, Unilever has signed a partnership agreement to expand its work with eYeka, a co-creation community platform.

Under the new partnership, effective from 1 June, eYeka’s online community is expected to accelerate the creation of more relevant marketing and communication campaigns for all the Unilever brands.

The agreement covers the Middle East, Russia, South Africa, and Asia Pacific, including China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The eYeka community has already worked on more than 30 projects for 16 Unilever brands over the past two years, including Clear, Close Up, Comfort, Cornetto, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Lux and Pond’s. In general, these projects are run as contests, where consumers are asked to contribute ideas according to a brief for a chance to win cash prizes. (See below for a case study video involving Lux.)

Rahul Welde, Unilever’s vice president (media) for Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Russia, told Campaign Asia-Pacific the intention of the partnership is to increase the level of engagement with the most creative of consumers.

“The objective is to build a great creative product working very closely with Unilever’s agencies, and create a stronger ecosystem and platform, which enables the company to tap into real-time insights and ideas around brands and products,” he said. “Ultimately this agreement will accelerate the development of a culture of co-creation and collaboration that drives innovation and creativity.”

François Pétavy, CEO of eYeka, said the partnership signals that crowdsourcing is being recognised as a business accelerator. it also shows that turning to consumers for ideas is a source of competitive advantage even on a large scale, he said.

Today, successful brands are not only something consumers love, but also something they want to participate in. “As the pace of change is accelerating, it is even more important for marketers to remain deeply connected to what consumers want,” Pétavy told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

“To solve that, brands and their agencies are opening up to creative ideas from more diversified sources such as communities of consumers,” he said. “We believe in a new open model where brands and their agencies collaborate with consumers and other non-traditional players on a sustainable basis. The rapid adoption of crowdsourcing across leading global brands seems to indicate that we are at the cusp of a fundamental shift.”

eYeka was founded in 2006 in Paris. It also has offices in Singapore, the UK and Brazil with a community of 250,000 creators in 154 countries, as well as a network of partners in Japan, Australia and South Korea.

The company has launched 520 crowdsourcing or co-creation projects to date and received nearly 71,000 ideas from its members, leading to almost US$3.96 million in cash prizes awarded. Currently, there are about 40 brands and companies engaging with its community, including Nestle, P&G, Mondelez, Danone, Coca-Cola, Lenovo, Hyundai, Samsung, LG, and Toyota.

“Through this platform, brands can get a wealth of creative, consumer-rooted content and ideas to solve their marketing and communication challenges,” Pétavy said. “As you start with consumers, you have higher chances to get it right from the beginning, increasing the likelihood of market acceptance.”

As it happens online in a crowd sourced model, brands effectively compress time on their creative projects, when speed to market is a competitive advantage, he added.

eYeka also works extensively as a partner to many agencies, which transform raw ideas from the community into brand or campaign ideas, and then develop and integrate them, according to the company. Pétavy cited a project with Asatsu-DK as an example.

In addition, eYeka has recently launched a new tool that allows a brand to ask questions of its community in a text format and receive answers in a matter of days.

Source: Campaign India

Jabong.com invites ‘shopaholics’ to extend campaign

crowdsourcingindia — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 06:21:44 +0000

Jabong.com has partnered with Talenthouse India, a Reliance Entertainment division, to launch an initiative called ‘Scream of Joy Videos’. Through this, the e-commerce player is inviting ‘fashion conscious shoppers’ to shoot a video for Jabong.com.

The brand claims that the strategy behind the crowdsourcing campaign was to launch an online campaign in the competitive online shopping category.

Manu Jain, co-founder, Jabong.com, said, “Crowdsourcing videos on Talenthouse enable us to directly connect with a large base of audience online and offline. Our scream campaign has been one of our most successful campaigns and therefore, we found perfect fit to extend our TVC campaign thought for our audience to submit their own renditions. The objective is to tap into a shopaholic’s excitement which we aim to take to the next level of engagement.”

Arun Mehra, CEO, Talenthouse added, “Brands today can and should use external ideas and share rewards with their audience to stay connected with their target customers. Jabong.com TVC campaign has a very interesting concept of ‘shopaholism’ which we at Talenthouse India are very excited to throw open to our artist community for interesting and funny videos. We are expecting some great entries that would creatively shock us all.”

The last date for sending entries is 31 July 2013. One winner will receive 1.5 lakh, and two runner ups will receive Rs 50,000 each. More details are at: http://www.talenthouse.com/jabongscreamofjoy-2013.

Also in the online space, restaurants site Zomato.com had crowdsourced its TV campaign last year.

Source: Campaign India

Crowdsourcing opens new avenues for researchers and industry

crowdsourcingindia — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 07:22:32 +0000

Isn’t it fascinating how rapidly things evolve? It was not too long ago that outsourcing was all the rage. In the present scenario, the trending concept of crowdsourcing is proving to be more fruitful. Unlike outsourcing, which metes out tasks to a defined group of people, crowdsourcing distributes tasks to random people who aren’t on a fixed payroll or who aren’t a fixture of the concerned organisation. Roles can be assigned to students or researchers online and offline as well.

Crowdsourcing is thriving at a fast rate in Australia. Under the banner of DesignCrowd, an online platform for crowdsourcing has been launched in India, Singapore and the Philippines. It outsources various design projects to a wide range of freelance designers spread across the globe. India is DesignCrowd’s fourth largest source of users.

Although the concept of crowdsourcing is very alien to the major chunk of the country, it is gradually gaining momentum in certain cities. For instance, Bangalore based Jade Magnet launched DesignCrowd platform in 2009. Of late, Jade Magnet has been launching its services to other Asian markets. All credit goes to the Internet for bridging together distant continents and making it possible for diverse bunches of people to share ideas, tackle problems and innovate. Planet Hunters, a brand new website collaboration between Adler Planetarium, Yale University and Zooniverse would’ve never come into existence if not for the world of crowdsourcing. Now, armchair astronomers can report about their findings after stargazing.

Additionally, the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has introduced changes y adding an “open innovation” dimension to R&D. To stimulate more research, GSK has made its tuberculosis compound library available. For now, visitors have access to data of almost 4,500 clinical trial results (positive or negative) summaries. Open Lab was established two years ago to allow independent researchers access to GSK facilities, resources and knowledge to support their progress researching diseases of the developing world.

Techpedia serves as an open collaboration and innovation platform. It draws ideas from students and aims at putting them into practice. A bunch of students from the international Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) worked towards finding solutions to the urban planning predicament that is traffic. They have arrived at a couple of innovative solutions that would require the assistance of civil engineering or by simply drawing a limit to the density. This project aims to develop a real-time traffic information system helping a user to check the traffic density on various roads. Essentially, this project is classified into three different stages- Collection, Processing and Visualisation. Censors, data processing, GIS, an android application and a web interface are all part and parcel of this project.

Source: C@g

The People Know Best

crowdsourcingindia — Tue, 28 May 2013 14:27:44 +0000

It is not only politicians who say so. Marketers seeking ideas feel the same. Crowdsourcing is the new buzzword in communications.

Hyundai’s i10: Hyundai held a contest for an i10 TV commercial. The prize? Sharing screen space with Shah Rukh Khan in the commercial

It was a dream come true for Bhaskar Kanchan. The Mumbai resident hurriedly scribbled an idea for a contest to write a commercial for his favourite car brand, the i10 – and ended up sharing screen space with superstar Shah Rukh Khan. His winning idea was simple: Kanchan turns into Khan each time he steps into Hyundai Motor India’s small hatchback. “I have been a big fan of Hyundai and Shah Rukh Khan always. I’m really excited I am part of this commercial,” says Kanchan.

Consumers want to participate in the decision-making process … whether it is a social cause or even having a say in what they consume: Vidur Vyas

Welcome to the world of crowdsourcing, the practice of tapping the collective intelligence of a large group of people to generate creative ideas for business. Companies in developed markets have been successfully using this method for a bit less than a decade, but it is still a relatively new concept in India. Thanks to the Internet and the digital revolution in the past few years, crowdsourcing is the new buzzword in communications and everybody from government institutions to companies and marketing agencies has jumped aboard the bandwagon to “source” ideas from the “crowd”.

They use it to seek new ideas through contests and campaigns for everything from commercials to new logos, or to simply gather public opinion on new products. Experts say the strategy is working like a charm. Nalin Kapoor, Senior General Manager and Group Head, Marketing, at Hyundai Motor India, says the response to the ‘Write Your i10 Story’ contest was overwhelming: the company received more than 62,000 entries in just four weeks. “Our premium compact car, i10, has more than 1.2 million customers across the globe. To celebrate this achievement and to amplify and communicate with customers, we brought in the concept of crowdsourcing for our campaign,” he adds. “Crowdsourcing costs as much as a traditional campaign; however, in terms of impact it is superior to a traditional campaign.”

India has seen some massive crowdsourcing campaigns in the past few years. One of the most high-profile was a public design contest by the finance ministry to create a symbol for the rupee. Thousands of people sent in entries before the government zeroed in on the final symbol based on the Devanagari script using the letter Ra. In 2011, Hero MotoCorp India launched its online Billion Voices campaignfor which it invited people to sing their interpretation of A.R. Rahman’s Hum Mein Hai Hero anthem and then created several TV commercials from the content. Anil Dua, Senior Vice President (Marketing & Sales), Hero MotoCorp, says customers uploaded 5,200 videos on the campaign microsite.

Confectionery giant Perfetti Van Melle India crowdsourced the artwork for its Happydent chewing gum fliptop packs through a contest on crowdsourcing specia list Talenthouse’s website. The winner was a 23-year-old Mumbai visual communications student. PepsiCo India held a ‘Suggest a Flavour’ campaign for its wafer brand, Lays, which drew a huge 1.4 million entries.

“Today, consumers want to participate in the decision-making process,” says Vidur Vyas, Marketing Director (Foods), PepsiCo India. “We see this at all levels, whether it is a social cause or even having a say in what they consume. We picked up this trend over two years ago for our Lays campaign.”

So, how does crowdsourcing work? Simple, some companies such as Samsung and Vodafone work exclusively with specialist agencies such as Talenthouse and Jade Magnet, while others such as Hyundai and Hero go with their regular ad agencies. Some brands stick to online media for crowdsourcing while others use traditional mass media such as television and print to drive consumers to their campaigns. According to Vyas, it depends on the need of the brand. Lays, for example, wanted to generate more hype and communicate with consumers through a traditional medium. But it is not an either-or choice for many marketers. “Each medium has its own benefits. TV is critical for all brand-building initiatives because of its high reach and reminder value whereas print is the apt medium to provide new news and information,” says Hero MotoCorp’s Dua.

We gave them (Micromax) a sample of popular consumer perception of their brand: Arun Mehra Photo: Rachit Goswami/www.indiatodayimages.com

“However, significant inroads into these media have occurred with the emergence of digital media and a lot of ideas are now conceived specifically and first for the digital platform and then taken into traditional media.”

The winning argument in favour of specialist players such as Talenthouse Entertainment, a joint venture between Reliance ADA Group and Talenthouse Inc, is the cost advantage. Talenthouse Entertainment CEO Arun Mehra says consumer electronics company Micromax approached them to generate ideas from the public for a new brand logo. A typical ad agency would have managed only 30-40 options. “We, however, managed to give them 2,500 logos and also gave them a sample of popular consumer perception of their brand by reaching out to just about anyone wanting to participate,” says Mehra, whose agency has 28 brands from India under its belt. The campaign did not just help create a new logo but also secured people’s views, for which the company would otherwise have had to conduct market research separately.

Not surprisingly, Manik Kinra, Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Jade Magnet, finds many small and medium enterprises and even some start-ups using his service to crowdsource ideas. His company not only offers design and logo solutions through crowdsourcing, but also a complete package of creative and digital services such as website designing and gaming application solutions.

mosimageHe has offered Meru Cabs crowdsourced ideas to help choose its interiors. Kinra has also started driving active participation from designers and artists by visiting art schools and design colleges where there is a ready community willing to participate in any invitation for crowdsourcing ideas.

One leading marketing consultant says crowdsourcing is just a fancy new word for what has been around for years and was called customer suggestion. Globally, some experts say the term was coined by Jeff Howe in a 2006 article in Wired magazine. Either way, everybody agrees it is an idea that is here to stay. Agnello Dias, Chief Creative Officer of advertising agency Taproot India , says sharp clarity is necessary to evaluate crowdsourced ideas. “If you are looking at interesting options, there are chances of getting swayed and using something that appeals to an individual as opposed to what is needed by the brand,” he says.

Source: Business Today

Is India ready for crowdsourcing?

crowdsourcingindia — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:30:19 +0000

Did you ponder over the origin of the new Rupee symbol? It was not the output of the great creative volcanoes but the creation of a common man through crowdsourcing. India is a vast country with an extremely diverse culture which is difficult to understand. Hence, brands rely on agencies to develop a plan for the future. Crowdsourcing is a means to create an eco-system of engaging with audiences that are relevant and co-creating the future of business with them. It provides a multitude of ways to gather ideas, opinions and feedback.

Capturing people from different walks of life singing in the spirit of ‘Hum Me Hai Hero’ to writing your Hyundai i10 story and getting selected to star in the TVC alongside Shahrukh Khan, crowdsourcing helps in gaining deeper understanding of the customers. It helps in effectively communicating with the users and also allows them to actively participate in the creativity and strategising aspects for the brand. Reaching the relevant crowds is becoming easier with diverse audiences and technology penetrating to masses. Hence, companies are crowdsourcing logos to products and creative campaigns.

Dinesh Goel, Founder, Innovative Ideators said, “With the pattern and behaviour of future customer changing so rapidly and becoming more and more diverse, even global brands wanting to operate in India, will have to include the local connect. Hence, crowdsourcing has become extremely important for brands wanting to succeed in India.”

According to experts, nine of the top 10 global brands crowdsource and it is estimated that $300 million were invested in 2012 on crowdsourcing initiatives.

Arun Mehra, CEO, Talenthouse India said, “Internationally, crowdsourcing, open innovation and co-creation have been around as part of marketing and innovative strategies, which are only getting bigger and bigger; P&G’s Connect & Develop has over the years claimed that more than 50 per cent of product initiatives involve significant collaboration with outside innovators. Similarly, Pepsi has converted people’s ideas from wishful thinking to reality through the Pepsi Refresh Project.”

“In India, besides crowdsourcing the Rupee symbol by the Indian Government, large scale consumer involvement has not yet been undertaken. Brands have now opened up to consumer generated content on smaller scale through social media and this trend will only gain momentum in the coming years,” he added.

With the advent of digital media, crowdsourcing is one of the fastest and the most effective ways for brands to reach out to relevant audiences. Companies such as Mahindra, HUL, Toyota, Airtel, Ricoh are the few companies that are regularly investing in crowdsourcing initiatives in India. Brands are using crowdsourcing for various purposes from product development and packaging to brand communication and engagement.

According to Mehra, Wikipedia is the largest example of crowdsourcing and Yahoo Answers is also a portal where the crowd contributes. DARPA (US Government) is using crowdsourcing for new Spy Drone designs whereas Netflix has used crowdsourcing consistently even to caption its video library, and scientists are using it to understand earthquake patterns, etc. Design seems to be one of the most popular routes to engage with consumers. Happydent, Kurkure have crowdsourced product design, Vodafone sourced the jersey and cap design for IPL finals, and Opium eye wear crowdsourced a sunglass design.

Goel believes that the best example of using crowdsourcing is Harley Davidson. It has invested on everything from the design and colour of their bikes to their experiential marketing programme to the Harley club for bikers.

Marketing the crowdsourcing way
With an attempt to make the consumer the centre of the entire communication process, Hero Moto-corp invited people to sing the Hero song, shoot their video and upload it, and their video became a part of the film.

Anil Dua, Senior VP, Marketing and Sales, Hero MotoCorp said, “Billion Voices is an engagement programme where individuals were invited to sing along and submit their own videos for the ‘Hum Mein Hai Hero’ anthem. This was the first time when crowdsourcing was used by a mainstream Indian brand to continuously create fresh content for its TV and digital campaign. Thousands of fans from across the country sent in their videos. This initiative helped us get our proposition ‘Hum Mein Hai Hero’ quickly into the hearts and minds of people across the country.”

The new Micromax logo design crowdsourced on Talenthouse resembles a punch capturing the attitude of the youth, adding to the brands esteem. According to Shubhodip Pal, Chief Marketing Officer at Micromax, the logo was globally crowdsourced resonating with the values of the brand. Crowdsourcing helped in coming up with an open-ended logo with a lot of connotations.

“I think crowdsourcing has worked quite a lot for many brands. There are new and emerging brands in the digital space that do not have the bandwidth to go to expensive boutiques, so using the platform to generate smart ideas helps. The future is bright but it depends on the flexibility of the brand. The established brands will not do it but it is the cheapest way to meet objectives,” Pal said.

To amplify and communicate customer trust in Hyundai, the company brought the concept of crowdsourcing through ‘Write your i10 Story’. “Crowdsourcing concept is appropriate for brands which have been successful in the past and there is positive customer response in the present scenario as well. The campaign received 62,000 entries within a span of four weeks. We will keep evaluating such ideas in the future and engage with customers through such campaigns,” said Nalin Kapoor, Group Head – Marketing, Hyundai Motor India.

Pitfalls
Crowdsourcing in India is still at a very nascent stage. However, brands and companies are beginning to look at it as an emerging process. Educating the relevant crowd is of supreme importance. Goel believes that currently, crowdsourcing initiatives are being funded from the extra budget rather than a mainstream plan; so to say, it’s a tactical exercise rather than a strategic initiative to get ideas, talent and solutions for any function of business. “There are no ready databases and the penetration of digital medium and internet is still low, which makes reaching the last mile a little difficult,” Goel said.

“At every step of crowdsourcing, companies need to invest qualitatively. The articulation of the challenge for which they are seeking ideas and solutions needs to be very good. The reach to relevant crowds needs to be well planned, timed and executed and not judge the ideas on the crowds ability to think, but for the ideas they contribute,” Goel added.

Brands and companies will learn from the global experience and mistakes, and will be careful in keeping the relevance along with execution capabilities of what ideas, reach and talent they garner through crowdsourcing. “Essentially, the Indian corporate DNA of keeping Return on Investment will include Return on Innovation and Cost Benefit in mind before they evangelise crowdsourcing,” Goel said.

Mehra states that creative crowdsourcing is a revolutionary breakthrough the world over and in a short span of time India is taking a lead in the crowdsourcing space. He believes that India is sitting on a goldmine of talent waiting to be discovered. “This makes creative crowdsourcing even more popular among artist who seek to be recognised and brands and mentors who want to connect, engage and work with the best of talent in the country.” Mehra added.

Despite India being at a nascent stage in crowdsourcing, there is immense untapped talent that needs to be leveraged to deliver the best results.

Source: exchange4media.com

#DriveWithMTV Season 2 Decides The Route By Crowdsourcing Places On Twitter

crowdsourcingindia — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:52:24 +0000

The second season of ‘Drive with MTV’ is back after a successful stint in the first one and this time the social road trip is even more social – the trip routes are being crowdsourced through Twitter, bloggers can get exclusive wildcard entries and more. ‘Drive with MTV’ is India’s first social streaming show featuring 4 teams in their Tata Nanos on a road trip across the country in 21 days. The teams share their journey live everyday across social media platforms and make points on every like, comment, share, retweet, etc. The first season saw team Nano North win based on their social media clout and take home brand new Tata Nanos.

For the second season, MTV India launched a first-of-its-kind crowdsourcing initiative for the social road trip yesterday. Twitter users were invited to tweet their favourite travel destination using the hashtag #DriveWithMTV. These suggestions were then shortlisted to form the routes for this season of Drive with MTV. The chosen destinations won goodies and was simultaneously shared on the Facebook page of Drive with MTV. The final 20 locations have been decided after a day long tweeting drive.

For all you road trip junkies out there, the shortlisting process is on till the 20^th of May. 24 of these shortlisted people will be selected to form the final 12 with four teams of 3 people each. You need to register on this page with a fun video entry talking about a memorable trip that you had taken and why you love to travel.

Interestingly, Drive with MTV has also associated with BlogAdda, a bloggers community to offer 3 wildcard entries who will form the shortlisted 24. Bloggers need to share a memorable journey and give their reasons for the love of travel. Once in the shortlist, they have to send video entries as well and fight it out for the final team of 12.

The second season of Drive with MTV promises to be more exciting even before it has started. The teams travel across the length and breadth of the country and share their experiences on social media, along the routes that have been decided through social media!

Boston Marathon bombings: How Twitter and Reddit got it wrong

crowdsourcingindia — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:49:52 +0000

Around 7pm on Thursday night, social media sites like Twitter and Reddit lit up with a sensational rumor: that Sunil Tripathi, a student who had vanished weeks ago, was one of the suspects accused of bombing the Boston Marathon.

Several hours later, US network NBC News reported that the authorities were actually seeking two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, with no link to the missing student.

But as the erroneous reports about Tripathi continued to spread online, his family, huddled around their computers in Providence, Rhode Island, felt helpless as Internet users levelled accusation after accusation against their missing relative.

“Someone will tweet, then retweet, and completely unsubstantiated things can proliferate so rapidly and destructively,” Sunil’s sister Sangeeta Tripathi said in an interview yesterday. “Those night hours were horrible.”

The chaos wrought by the social media rumour mill, exacerbated by prominent journalists who re-circulated the misinformation early Friday morning, came at the end of a tumultuous week for both established news organizations and the social media sites that are altering the dynamics of newsgathering.

Some traditional media outlets were pilloried for irresponsible reporting – among them News Corp’sNew York Post, which published on its front page Wednesday a picture of two men holding bags implying that they were the suspects. Post editor Col Allan said in a statement to Salon that it did not identify the men pictured as suspects and that it stood by the cover photo.

Other large media outlets were also criticised for inaccuracies: Time Warner’s CNN and the Associated Press reported that a suspect had been arrested Wednesday before that was denied by officials.

A CNN spokeswoman said the information was based on three credible sources and was changed as soon as sources provided new information. AP spokesman Paul Colford said: “We reported what we knew to be the case or what we were told at the time, and it came undone. We issued the correction which the AP religiously does.”

Social media sites came under fire for encouraging a rush to judgment.

On Reddit, an increasingly influential social media site owned by magazine publisher Conde Nast, users posted pictures taken from the bomb scene and engaged in a large-scale, semi-organized effort to identify the bombers. At one point, users even compiled a spreadsheet of possible suspects, whom they sought to identify.

The Reddit sleuths didn’t succeed, naming Tripathi and other people who ultimately had nothing to do with the events. But by morning on the East Coast, Tripathi’s name had already been circulated in the press in India and Britain.

Marcus Messner, a communications professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the rash of mainstream media errors stemmed at least in part from pressure to compete with fast-flowing social media.

“If you look at Twitter, the news snippets on the events are a lot more advanced than what you’re seeing on websites or even what you’re seeing on the air,” Messner said. “Twitter, especially, has put a lot more pressure on news organization to get it out fast.”

The mix-up around Tripathi shone a spotlight on Reddit, which now has more than 14 million monthly visitors, according to ComScore.

At one point, Luke Russert, a reporter at Comcast Corp’s NBC News – the outlet that was ultimately first to name the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects – tweeted it would “change the game” for journalism if Reddit had in fact correctly identified Tripathi, though he did caution that the information was “still unconfirmed”.

Late last night, after Reddit was debunked, Russert said in an email: “I don’t think it’s an overstatement that earlier this morning new media came into its own to a degree.”

“The point I was making is that Twitter, Reddit, Skype were instrumental in the audience understanding the story,” Russert said.

Reddit general manager Erik Martin said he apologised to the Tripathi family yesterday and pledged a review of policy.

“The crowd-sourced investigation is something that’s really new and extreme in this case,” Martin said.

“All of the people working at Reddit, and the millions of people on Reddit – everyone needs to make sure they’re helping and not hindering a crisis situation. In the aftermath of this, we’re all going to both internally and in the community be asking that question.”

Ben Smith, the editor of Buzzfeed, a leading “social news” website, defended one of his reporters, who, due to his large Twitter following, played a central role in initially spreading the Tripathi rumor.

Smith said that Buzzfeed staffers were simply doing their best to give readers “context” of the information swirling around the Internet.

“I think it’s futile to pretend readers aren’t seeing everything, and that instead we should be providing context,” Smith wrote in an email.

The saga generated reflection within the online community itself, as numerous Reddit users left comments chastising the “witch hunt”. On Friday, Redditors launched a new crowdsourced campaign to help locate Tripathi.

Source : Independent.co.uk

Pixorial Launches Krowds Video for Android

crowdsourcingindia — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:22:01 +0000

New Location-Based Video App Brings Multiple Perspectives of Shared Events to Fastest Growing Mobile Platform

Pixorial®, the video service that lets users transform shared experiences into their own personal stories, today introduced worldwide availability of Krowds™ Video for Android. Available now on Google Play, the free app lets people quickly discover, contribute and join in the shared video experience with full quality videos of any length. Krowds harnesses the power of video crowdsourcing by making it easy, convenient and nearly limitless. The new app completely changes the way consumers experience video by providing access to many different perspectives contributed by others at a shared event.

“Now that Krowds is available for both iOS and Android, almost anyone with a smartphone will be able to share video based on location and interests without limitations. We’re thrilled that more people worldwide can use the power of Krowds to capture, share and curate personally relevant videos,” said Andrés Espiñeira, Founder and CEO of Pixorial. “We expect the strong positive reaction from our iPhone version will translate to other devices as we continue to roll out more ways for consumers to participate in Krowds.”

The announcement of the Android version of Krowds comes on the heels of Pixorial’s debut launch of Krowds for iOS three weeks ago. Since the launch, the app has already seen significant user adoption and content contribution including:

People around the globe have created Krowds featuring a variety of interests, ranging from the Coachella music festival, to sci-fi and horror convention Starfest Denver, to Boston Red Sox games and even fishing vacations in Auckland, New Zealand.
In the first three weeks of availability, Krowds has seen a tenfold increase in adoption compared to Pixorial’s existing mobile app.
On average, a user creating a Krowd invites six of their friends to join that Krowd.
Users of Krowds are located on nearly every continent, with Krowds being formed in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Saudi Arabia, India, Australia, Colombia, Chile, Peru, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Israel and more.

Join the shared video experience today and start capturing ‘Different Points of You’ right away by downloading Krowds Video for Android from Google Play and for iPhone or iPad, from the Apple App Store.

To learn more, watch video demos, browse FAQs and see an official media kit, please visit http://www.krowds.co

About Pixorial
Pixorial is the only crowd video ecosystem that lets anyone transform shared experiences into personal stories. Launched in 2009, Pixorial frees the world’s video and connects people of all ages via its simple, intuitive video creation and sharing tools. Pixorial offers the only unlimited video platform imposing no restrictions on video quality, source, length or sharing capabilities, making it easy for users to upload, edit, organize and share their videos. With multiple industry awards and 300,000 users worldwide, Pixorial is privately held and based in Englewood, Colorado.

Source : Marketwire.com

Women start-ups to get support from leading technical body

crowdsourcingindia — Tue, 07 May 2013 07:05:46 +0000

Kerala section of Institution of Electronics and Electrical Engineers will set up a mechanism to support all-women start-ups in information technology and related technology domains.

A team is working to get the first such start-up in the social media space going early next month, says Sarada Jayakrishnan, who heads the Women in Engineering (WiE) initiative of IEEE Kerala Section.

SOCIAL MEDIA

This start-up is focused on utilising existing technology trends in social media to address applications of ‘crowdsourcing’ with special relevance to the market and social requirements of India.

Crowdsourcing is the process of getting work or funding, usually online, from a crowd of people.

Recruitment and business model of the new start-up will leverage the power of crowdsourcing to solve real-life problems by co-opting human resources organised through virtual communities.

Women constitute 50 per cent of students in engineering and other technical areas, but their presence and visibility in the realms of start-up enterprises is rather low, said Jayakrishnan.

“One can identify several reasons behind this, but empirically I would say lack of family support, risk aversion and the organisational culture of start-ups,” she added.

The WiE initiative would like to support formation of start-ups by ensuring that we create a women-friendly atmosphere and culture by providing mentoring and thorough technology support.

“Eventually, we would like to incorporate our learning in the process to all future start-ups.”

R. Srinivasan, chair, IEEE Kerala Section, said that women were as innovative, if not more, than men. There was no inherent reason why women’s start-ups could not emerge in the State.

HIDDEN RESOURCE

In fact, women are a hidden resource for start-ups as there are many who are, for various reasons, unable to go in search of jobs to other cities.

Promoting women’s start-ups will go a long way to tap into this resource and also bring women into the mainstream, he said.

IEEE has been taking a focused approach towards enterprise and innovation – both technological and social. Several projects have been taken up worldwide for fostering innovation for social and humanitarian causes. The Kerala Section has formulated a special task force called Promotion of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (PIE) as an effective contributor and mentor for innovations.

“We would like to draw upon the experience of local institutions in promoting these enterprises,” Srinivasan added.

Source : Thehindubusinessline.com

In India, platform offers personalized hospital treatment packages based on medical records

crowdsourcingindia — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:59:29 +0000

Medeel.com offers a service that matches those in need of surgery with customized care packages based on their medical records.

San Francisco’s BetterDoctor platform has already been helping patients find the best health professionals to see them at late notice. Now India-based Medeel.com is offering a service that matches those in need of surgery with customized care packages based on their medical records.

Aimed at those who have been advised to undergo medical procedures by their doctors or GPs, but want to ensure they get the cheapest deal or the best surgeons, Medeel first invites patients to detail their treatment needs and upload their medical records using its secure submission process. Medeel then shares this information with local hospitals that offer the required surgery. After around two or three days, customers receive customized healthcare plans from those hospitals, enabling them to choose the one which is the most suitable for their situation. Users can accept a deal through the Medeel site and are offered contact details to arrange the surgery once the process is completed.

While Medeel could help Indians cut the cost of necessary surgery, it can also be used to find doctors who cater to their specific needs, ensuring they get the treatment that is right for them. Could this work in other parts of the world?

Source : Springwise.com