stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is an alternative method to search engines for finding information on the web.   For me stumbling is a good description of how I search the web.  Being somewhat of an amateur, it always seems that when I do find a site thats worth anything to me, it’s usually by accident.  Stumbleupon uses ratings to form collaborative opinions about a websites quality.  When you stumble, web sites are presented to you based upon collected opinions and personal preferences that you have previously indicated.

etsy.com

This video by Jeff Howe explains how crowdsourcing can enable very small companies, or even individuals, who produce a product can find a wider audience.  His example is www.etsy.com which is an online marketplace for handmade goods.  Over the past few years etsy.com has grown to include 187, 000 shops in 170 countries.  Big deal you say, theres no money in handmade goods.  Well, using the power of crowds apparently there can be.  Last year, etsy.com sold $26,000,000 million in goods.  Handmade goods.  the power of crowds can seemingly create a demand for anything.  Check out etsy.com too.  I bet you could find many things you’d want to buy.

Open Source Architecture

This is about another talk I saw on ted.org.  It was given by Cameron Sinclair and it’s about the idea of open source architecture.  It uses the knowledge of crowds but with certain types of crowds inputting their knowledge in order to create better designs.  It would allow for architectural designs to be critiiqued and and approved by engineers as well make available proven designs to those in need of them.  He also talks about using this open source architecture to create a “conduit for innovation” by presenting adaptable ideas with the potential to evolve and be improved upon.

Open Source Learning

This is about a talk given by Richard Baraniuk that you can see on www.ted.org He’s talking about his dream of a “knowledge ecosystem.”  Its basically the concept of open source learning.  Using the web to share knowledge.  Of course thats not a new idea, so let me be more specific.  Its more about using and designing open source tools to bring education to the world in the form of textbooks.  He speaks about digitizing text, translating it to different languages, and even combining textbooks about certain topics and areas of study into “super textbooks” for specific topics.  All of this would then be available for free on an open source site.

I think this is a great idea that can bring knowledge to poorer regions of the world.  It could also help out less fortunate schools, with little money for new textbooks, within the U.S.  Not to mention it would be pretty nice to have all my colloge textbooks available online  for free.  Of course this is easy for me to say seeing that I don’t make a living from textbooks.