Crowd power

These are two very loosely linked, but no less interesting instances of crowd power: Wired has coined a new business modell-related term again, namely crowdsourcing. The idea is that jobs get outsourced to "the web" of people that is connected via the internet. As always, the hit/noise ratio is low, but given the right search algorithms, that's not a problem (long tails, anyone?). Case in point is iStockphoto, where you can purchase the rights to stock photos for next to no money at all, what used to cost hundreds ...

The other instance is political, and thus more conventional in nature: Addio Pizzo does not say good bye to pizze, but rather to pizzo, which is the racket paid in Sicily, Italy. Addiopizzo is a movement started by young folk in Palermo. Sick of the Mafia, they flooded the city with stickers stating that An entire people paying the racket is a people without dignity. Now, the movement seems to gain traction - there's shopkeepers openly stating that they don't pay up, and a consumers' movement to only shop at those shops. This approach addressing the Mafia's business modell is much more promising that decades of police work. Avanti, Addiopizzo!