WITN: Extraordinary Chickpeas and the Madness of Crowdsourcing

Mercredi, 20 Octobre 2010 01:26

WITN: Extraordinary Chickpeas and the Madness of Crowdsourcing

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“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

Not our words, but those of Charles Mackay, author of the 1841 classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Still, it would be safe to say that we’ve

always been a little skeptical of the benefits of crowd sourcing, whether for science, art or literature.

On the other side of the fence, sits Peter LaMotte. Peter is president of GeniusRocket, a platform that allows brands to crowdsource commercial and (they hope) viral videos from a closed (but vast) community of filmakers, animators and other similarly creative folks. We like Peter – for reasons outlined here and here – and so we figured if anyone could convince us that the future of creative endeavor lies with monkeys and typewriters it would be him.

Did he succeed? The video is below.

(And do watch to the end – there’s a bit with a naked chickpea puppet.)