crowdsourcing

noun crowd·sourc·ing \ ˈkrau̇d-ˌsȯr-siŋ \

|Updated on: 9 Jul 2018

Definition of crowdsourcing

: the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

Online crowdsourcing strategies that induce masses of people to solve a task, such as locating far-flung items or alleviating world hunger, work best when financial incentives impel participants to enlist friends and acquaintances in the effort, a new study concludes.
—Bruce Bower

These sites take advantage of the phenomenon known as crowdsourcing, or turning to the online masses for free or low-cost submissions.
—Katie Hafner

—

crowdsource

transitive verb crowdsourced; crowdsourcing

- But many people don't know the story behind Legos—how the company, on the verge of collapse, crowdsourced its future by polling its most hardcore fans, or how the little blocks have exploded to become a major force in education …
- —Smithsonian

Recent Examples of crowdsourcing from the Web

CompStak taps a crowdsourcing system to gather specific lease details from brokers and others who report the data in exchange for access to other CompStak information.

— keiko morris, WSJ, "VTS Plans Tool to Help Commercial Real Estate Clients Track Market Trends," 18 June 2018
The Beyond Good and Evil 2 crowdsourcing project is similar to other HitRecord projects.

— adi robertson, The Verge, "Joseph Gordon-Levitt is defending a controversial plan to crowdsource Beyond Good and Evil 2 art," 14 June 2018
Musk’s faith in the power of crowdsourcing is common in Silicon Valley.

— alex shephard, The New Republic, "Elon Musk’s Fall to Earth," 25 May 2018
What happened next is a classic example of news — and outrage — spreading rapidly through social media, along with some expert crowdsourcing.

— NBC News, "New York politicians file formal complaint against lawyer whose racist rant went viral," 17 May 2018
Just as important to Landon is the crowdsourcing project to find more information about Corbin.

— Washington Post, "Where’s Capt. Molly? Search on for Revolutionary hero grave," 29 Apr. 2018
Jeff Bigham, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who researches crowdsourcing, says asking people to work for free is OK as long as the deal offered is transparent.

— tom simonite, WIRED, "Google Turns to Users to Improve Its AI Chops Outside the US," 5 Apr. 2018
Snyder announced the challenge in February 2017 and solutions were accepted through the crowdsourcing site InnoCentive's Challenge Center from August through October of last year.

— keith matheny, Detroit Free Press, "Invasive Asian carp competition nets $500K in prizes for innovators," 27 Mar. 2018
Senior Luke Pailet set up a GoFundMe crowdsourcing site.

— BostonGlobe.com, "Do all guys wear the same black tux to prom?," 21 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'crowdsourcing.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.