Crowdcloud: Cloud of the Crowd

The ever increasing utilisation of crowdsourcing in various domains and its popularity as a method of accessing free or inexpensive labour, services, and innovation, and also as a method of providing fast solutions is observed as a good opportunity for both non-profit and for-profit organisations while it also appeals to members of the crowd. In particular, many cloud-based projects have benefited from crowdsourcing their needs for resources and they rely on the crowd and the resources they provide, either for free or for a nominal fee. However, current cloud platforms either provide services to the crowd or request services from them. Moreover, cloud services generally include a legally binding contract between the cloud service providers and cloud service clients. In this paper, the possible opportunities for applying crowdsourcing principles in the cloud in a new fashion are reviewed by proposing the idea of crowdcloud. Crowdcloud simply refers to the availability of cloud infrastructure, cloud platform, and cloud software services to the crowd by the crowd with or without a legally binding contract. This paper discusses the differences between crowdcloud and other similar notions already in existence. Then, a functional architecture is proposed for crowdcloud and its constituents. Some of the advantages of crowdcloud, along with potential issues in crowdcloud and how to circumvent or minimise them are also reviewed and discussed

Outsourcing labour to the cloud

Various forms of open sourcing to the online population are establishing themselves as cheap, effective methods of getting work done. These have revolutionised the traditional methods for innovation and have contributed to the enrichment of the concept of 'open innovation'. To date, the literature concerning this emerging topic has been spread across a diverse number of media, disciplines and academic journals. This paper attempts for the first time to survey the emerging phenomenon of open outsourcing of work to the internet using 'cloud computing'. The paper describes the volunteer origins and recent commercialisation of this business service. It then surveys the current platforms, applications and academic literature. Based on this, a generic classification for crowdsourcing tasks and a number of performance metrics are proposed. After discussing strengths and limitations, the paper concludes with an agenda for academic research in this new area

Crowdcloud: Cloud of the Crowd

The ever increasing utilisation of crowdsourcing in various domains and its popularity as a method of accessing free or inexpensive labour, services, and innovation, and also as a method of providing fast solutions is observed as a good opportunity for both non-profit and for-profit organisations while it also appeals to members of the crowd. In particular, many cloud-based projects have benefited from crowdsourcing their needs for resources and they rely on the crowd and the resources they provide, either for free or for a nominal fee. However, current cloud platforms either provide services to the crowd or request services from them. Moreover, cloud services generally include a legally binding contract between the cloud service providers and cloud service clients. In this paper, the possible opportunities for applying crowdsourcing principles in the cloud in a new fashion are reviewed by proposing the idea of crowdcloud. Crowdcloud simply refers to the availability of cloud infrastructure, cloud platform, and cloud software services to the crowd by the crowd with or without a legally binding contract. This paper discusses the differences between crowdcloud and other similar notions already in existence. Then, a functional\ud architecture is proposed for crowdcloud and its constituents. Some of the advantages of crowdcloud, along with potential issues in crowdcloud and how to circumvent or minimise them are also reviewed and discussed

Mapping for the Masses: Accessing Web 2.0 through Crowdsourcing

The authors describe how we are harnessing the power of web 2.0 technologies to create new approaches to collecting, mapping, and sharing geocoded data. The authors begin with GMapCreator that lets users fashion new maps using Google Maps as a base. The authors then describe MapTube that enables users to archive maps and demonstrate how it can be used in a variety of contexts to share map information, to put existing maps into a form that can be shared, and to create new maps from the bottom-up using a combination of crowdcasting, crowdsourcing, and traditional broadcasting. The authors conclude by arguing that such tools are helping to define a neogeography that is essentially "mapping for the masses,'' while noting that there are many issues of quality, accuracy, copyright, and trust that will influence the impact of these tools on map-based communication