The Interactive Glossary: Defining the Net
Crowdsourcing
The term refers to the outsourcing of tasks once performed by an employee or contractor to a large group of people. The community then collaborates online to accomplish a particular goal, such as analyzing data or developing new technology. One example is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which relies on crowdsourcing to create and edit its content.
Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006 in a Wired magazine article, "The Rise of Crowdsourcing".
