Some things, you can measure centrally. Some, you can survey with a sample group. But sometimes, what you really need is a giant crowdsourced effort — and that’s what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking Empire State residents to help with. [More]
crowdsourcing
IMDb Not Complying With New Law Blocking It From Publishing Actors’ Ages
By 1.9.17
On Jan. 1, a new law went into effect in California that would require the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) remove information about actors’ ages and birthdays. We’re now more than a week into the new year, and the site hasn’t taken this information down — and it has no intention of doing so in the immediate future. [More]
American Apparel Tries Crowdsourcing To Find Expensive Products People Will Buy
By 5.5.16
Three months after going private and emerging from a contentious fight over its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, American Apparel is looking to put the pieces back together, and it’s starting with a crowdsourcing campaign to solicit ideas for products made in the U.S. [More]
Tesla Will Pay You Up To $1000 To Break Their Website — But Don’t Try It On The Cars
By 6.5.15
If there is one truism we can count on in the digital era, it is that everything has bugs. No matter how carefully designed or nominally secure something is, someone, somewhere, can find a vulnerability in it. [More]
Amazon’s In-House Kindle Scout Publishing Platform Set To Release First 10 Books Next Month
By 2.24.15
Four months after Amazon launched a crowdsourced publishing platform that allows Kindle readers to kind-of, sort-of have a say in what unpublished books and hopeful authors reach their devices, the company is set to release the first 10 Kindle Scout titles next month. [More]
Readers’ Reviews Of Papa John’s Fritos Chili Pizza Mixed, Mostly Bad
By 11.4.14
Last week, we shared the somewhat terrifying news that Papa John’s is marketing a pizza topped with Fritos and chili. Yes, the snack chip Fritos. Yes, on a pizza. Yes, on a Papa John’s pizza. We asked whether any of you out in Consumerland had tried it, and some of you were brave enough to. [More]
Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern Suggests “Crowdsourced Expertise” Over Generic Yelp Reviews
By 3.10.14
Andrew Zimmern, chef and host of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, has never held back his feelings about crowdsourced review site Yelp, once calling it a “tremendous forum for a bunch of uninformed morons to take down restaurants.” It’s all well and good to slam the site, but what are people to do when they’re looking for insight on where to eat? [More]
Shaquille O’Neal Wants To Crowdsource $450K To Create New Version Of Cruddy Shaq Fu Video Game
By 3.6.14
Nearly 20 years ago, basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal lent his name and digitized likeness to Shaq Fu, a poorly slapped-together cash-in video game in which even contrarian hipsters have trouble finding any redeeming qualities. Now, with two decades to mull it over, Shaq has not only decided that it’s time for the sequel no one asked for, but that a sizable chunk of the funding should come from consumers. [More]
Community Raises $80,000 In Attempt To Save Local Toy Store
By 3.15.13
Just a week ago, it looked like an independent Illinois toy store would be going out of business after the bank chose to not renew the store’s business loan for another year. But online efforts to raise money by today’s deadline may have saved the store. [More]
NYC Deputizes All Citizens As Secret Shoppers
By 7.28.11
Inspections by New York’s Department of Consumer Affairs found that two-thirds of the supermarkets they visited were overcharging customers at the checkout counter. That’s up from 1 in 3 last August. So now they’re turning all shoppers into “deputized inspectors” to report malefactors. [More]
Test Your Broadband Speeds For The FCC
By 3.15.10
Last Thursday, the FCC started collecting information from consumers about the quality of their broadband service. If you’ve got a PC that can run Java, you can go to Broadband.gov and run the test now. (The FCC will collect your IP address and physical address, but not your name or email address, reports Wired.) If you’ve got an iPhone or Android smartphone, you can download an app to measure your connectivity and report it. [More]
Slate's 10 Ways To Fix Airline Seating
By 3.2.10
Yesterday we covered Slate’s look at what’s wrong with airline seating–it’s not just overweight people who feel cramped on flights these days. Slate asked its readers to come up with some practical solutions to the problem, and today they printed the top ten suggestions. [More]
Google Aims To Answer The Question: "But If I Get Off The Highway, Won't It Just Be Worse?"
By 8.26.09
Traffic reports are swell and all, but they don’t really help you when you’ve got no choice but to take the highway or risk the unknown — traffic on the regular roads. Google is trying to change that by offering “arterial” traffic data.
By 4.28.09
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Here’s why you don’t rely solely on Twitter for news about health scares. [xkcd] (Thanks to Rebecca!)
311 Street Improvement Photo Project Needs Your Help
By 8.22.07
Stay Free’s Carrie McLaren and Steve Lambert have started a crowdsourced photo project for New Yorkers to submit photos of 311 conditions in their hoods.
