Episode Seventy-One: Having Safe Clicks

Comment

Comment by Bob Knorpp on October 8, 2009 at 4:53pm

Apologies on the commenter sign-up process. When I started this site I had no intention of having a blog, per se. I was mainly interested in having an easy-to-manage forum. As it turns out, though, the forums have remained dead, I"m now a blogger and Ning has locked my ass in with their restrictive sign-up system. Can't even migrate away without migrating all my content by hand. 8P

But great points about the downfalls of crowdsourcing. And I'll keep complaining to Ning about needing a no-sign-up commenting system.

Bob

Comment by matt haines on October 8, 2009 at 4:09pm

One thing that I don't think you addressed with the 'crowdsource' ad creation (and it stands to reiterate that this isn't really crowdsourcing, it's contest-sourcing since there's no collaborative element):

Once the initial novelty wears off, the creatives contributing to these campaigns will do the absolute minimum work necessary. When as a contributor you realize that only a small percentage of your submissions will actually make money, you're not going to work very hard. Whereas an ad agency is getting paid to spend time and come up with a quality campaign. When your paycheck is assured, you put the time in and come up with good things (hopefully). How many hoops will you jump through to win a contest? Barely more than what it takes to fill out the contest entry form.

I do some work for a music label that has been getting album covers done through 99designs.com, a 'contest-sourced' graphic design site. One of the problems this label has run into is that, even though they're getting better results than using any non-designers in house, AND they're saving money compared to using a custom designer, they're getting so-so work. Initially it seemed really amazing stuff, but then after seeing the same types of things over and over, it became clear: designers were just taking proof images from microstock sites, slapping some type over them, and submitting the designs. The initial gloss gave way to thoughtless repetition.

99designs has even started discouraging designers from using stock, and also encouraging buyers to up their fees. I say good luck…

So this contest-sourcing scheme will yield some hits, but eventually the realities of time management will sink in, and the quality will also sink.

P.S. in the interest of frictionless social media, why do you insist on a multi-step sign-up process for leaving a comment? Seems a little contrary to your general philosophy. It's almost like if Seth Godin decided to start an opt-out social media aggregator for brands or something. :)