Crowdsourcing. duh. now i get it.

In this story from '06 in Wired, they talk about the rise of the idea of crowdsourcing.

Suddenly it all starts making sense.

Not only the context of all the controversy around Crispin Porter + Bogusky in general and ShockingBarack.com in specific, as well as my gut reaction to it (negative), crowdsourcing is a way to get amateur content for very low cost. It even seems like the whole viral marketing thing is taking it to the extreme of "crowd-buzz-sourcing"- get other people making the noise for you. Get a great viral thing going, sit back and collect. I'm not going to fan the flames, but with a little creative googling you can see for yourself what the ad/marketing community is all atwitter about... envy is not the least of it, either, as far as other agencies and CP+B.

As far as photography goes, and anyone trying to support a family with it, here's this lovely, uplifting quote from the story. Well, uplifting like it may uplift your ass from your empty studio couch and get you looking for a job pumping gas.

After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. “I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto,” she wrote, “which has images at very affordable prices.” That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto – for about $1 each.

iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent. How? By creating a marketplace for the work of amateur photographers – homemakers, students, engineers, dancers. There are now about 22,000 contributors to the site, which charges between $1 and $5 per basic image. (Very large, high-resolution pictures can cost up to $40.) Unlike professionals, iStockers don’t need to clear $130,000 a year from their photos just to break even; an extra $130 does just fine. “I negotiate my rate all the time,” Harmel says. “But how can I compete with a dollar?”

He can’t, of course. For Harmel, the harsh economics lesson was clear: The product Harmel offers is no longer scarce. Professional-grade cameras now cost less than $1,000. With a computer and a copy of Photoshop, even entry-level enthusiasts can create photographs rivaling those by professionals like Harmel. Add the Internet and powerful search technology, and sharing these images with the world becomes simple.

I'd add something in the list- "with a computer etc etc ... and lower standards and expectations from clients, and little or no understanding, or appreciation of exceptional content..."

On a bad day I'd call it "being a lazy hack..." but that's just me being a bitch.

I mourn for the future of our profession.