A. What is CrowdsourcingCrowdsourcing, a term rarely used outside of the business world, is actually a popular practice applied discreetly everywhere around us. It's when an organization recruits a variety of freelancers to work on a specific task or problem to get things done, without ever having to meet them in person. Understandably, this notion may seem as radical and risky as it actually is; however, it is also a very real and important business idea that is rapidly revolutionizing the way we do business. While explanations vary, the main concept of crowdsourcing is to tap into the combined intelligence of the public to carry out tasks that a company would normally have done itself or delegate to a third party. Free labor, ironically, is only a small part of crowdsourcing's appeal. The biggest benefit crowdsourcing offers is that it allows managers to expand the size of their talent pool and at the same time strategically gain deeper insight into what customers actually want, thereby increasing their value and overall market share via an interactive medium.B. Benefits of Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing can actually improve productivity and creativity while reducing some overhead costs. Using the Internet to gain acceptance from an active and passionate community of customers can reduce the amount of time spent collecting data through formal focus groups, while at the same time instilling excitement for future products. By recruiting a group of consumers into business-related processes, managers can reduce both personnel expenses and risks resulting from uncertain market demand.C. Cons of Crowdsourcing Although crowdsourcing can reap many benefits, the truth is that crowds are not for...... middle of paper......ney when their images are purchased or downloaded. Threadless.com allows participants to submit and vote on t-shirt designs/ideas to decide which ones should be pursued. uTest provides app testing solutions for venture clients including Amazon, Virgin and Sony. The solutions build on the foundations of crowdsourcing to give customers access to software testers in over 200 countries on demand. “uTest was ranked No. 7 in Forbes' third annual list of America's Most Promising Companies.”F. Conclusion The idea of ​​asking the public for input is certainly not new, and the open source movement has shown us that it can be done with incredibly large masses of individuals. The difference, however, is that today's technology enables large numbers of non-technical people to complete complex, creative tasks, at greatly reduced costs..