crowdsourcing
noun
crowd·sourc·ing
| \ ˈkrau̇d-ˌsȯr-siŋ
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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
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Examples of crowdsourcing in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Beneath the gripping plot lies an inquiry into the power of social media and crowdsourcing. — Douglas Preston, The New Yorker, "Briefly Noted," 27 Aug. 2019 The library is asking anyone with a computer and an interest in historical documents to join a crowdsourcing project called By the People, in which volunteers will transcribe several thousand documents from the library’s vaults. — Barbara Krasnoff, The Verge, "Write history for the Library of Congress’ crowdsourcing project," 14 Aug. 2019 Old Weather, a crowdsourcing project, has enlisted the help of thousands of volunteers to transcribe entries from 20th-century ship logbooks (some written by hand) to help scientists compile historical climate data to feed into their models. — The Economist, "Shipping logs show how quickly Arctic sea ice is melting," 13 Aug. 2019 The crowdsourcing show, which will be hosted by Ann Curry, premieres Thursday at 9 p.m. on both TNT and TBS. — Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, "The week in TV: Back to ‘90210,’ Woodstock past and present, and two-sentence horror stories," 4 Aug. 2019 By combining the power of global crowdsourcing, social media, and established medical expertise, each case is untangled with illuminating new insights that had previously eluded doctors. — Kathryn Lindsay, refinery29.com, "Everything Coming To Netflix In August," 25 July 2019 The workers said they had been inspired by recent union drives at media companies and among graduate students, and their efforts even echo the #MeToo movement in its use of Google Doc crowdsourcing. — New York Times, "Inside Hushed Museum Hallways, a Rumble Over Pay Grows Louder," 22 July 2019 The 2020 medals represent the contributions of Japanese citizens and are the culmination of a crowdsourcing project that began when people were asked to recycle their cellphones and small devices and appliances over two years ago. — Cindy Boren, courant.com, "Tokyo Olympics go green with medals made entirely of recycled metal," 24 July 2019 Patients use the power of global crowdsourcing and established medical expertise to find cures to their mysterious illnesses in the docuseries based on Dr. Lisa Sanders' New York Times Magazine column. — Carly Mallenbaum, USA TODAY, "Netflix in August 2019: 'Rocky,' 'Now and Then' and 'Mindhunter' are in; 'Scarface' is out," 24 July 2019These 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.
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