Crowdsourcinglinks.com

ArtBreak:Selling and Sharing Art Online

Head Honcho — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:41:41 +0000

Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is recognized in our time as a brilliant artist. And yet, it is hard to imagine that during his life, he only sold only one painting, and that he died penniless. Stories of artists who died penniless are many. The reason may be varied; they may just have focused solely on their craft or they simply had no means of selling them to the public.

As to the latter reason, it should not be as hard to sell artwork in our time as before, as there are now more ways of selling nowadays. The internet is one great example of a place where an artist can showcase his work to everyone.

One website which offers a place for artists to share and sell their work is Artbreak. Through the website, artists can know showcase their works to the public, giving them an avenue of making money off their works.

Artbreak is a great place for artists to share their masterpiece online. Their works can be commented on by other members. But the best feature of Artbreak is that it allows the artists to sell their work in the site. Art pieces can be priced from $1 to $10,000, depending on the quality and reputation of the artist. While there may be reservation from potential customers in buying artwork online, the Artbreak still contributes to the art community bridging the divide between artists and art enthusiasts.

There is also a forum in the site in which the anyone - whether artist or art lover - can interact with other members of the site. The website has a very vibrant community, as can be seen in the forum, where artists actively post in the discussions. Thanks to Artbreak, artists and art lovers alike can now have a website to converge.

Here is a video of an artwork being made, which was later made available at Artbreak.

Unburdening Yourself at Oops…I’m Sorry

Head Honcho — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:58:36 +0000

In Kim Edwards’ novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a newly married couple led an idyllic life. Everything changed when the husband, a doctor, delivered the babies of his wife one fateful night. One baby was a healthy boy, the other, a girl with down syndrome. He made a decision to not let anyone know of the birth of the girl, so he decided to send the baby girl away to a foster home. He kept the secret all his life, and it affected the couple’s marital life.

In our lives things can somehow go wrong one way or another. Like the protagonist in the novel, we can be burdened with guilt (although the guilt may be to a lesser degree) because of some event. It can be entirely our fault, or it can just be due to a freak accident. It may have been triggered by events entirely out of our hands, but we somehow aggravated the problem.

Whatever the cause may be, we sometimes feel guilty about it, or put the blame entirely on ourselves, however irrational that reaction might be. With no one to share our feelings with, we can be paralyzed with this burden, and it might affect the way we function with other people in our everyday lives.

Oops…I’m Sorry is a website that was conceptualized so that anyone can have an avenue where one can unburden himself of whatever emotional baggage he is carrying.

Oops…..I’m Sorry is an interactive web site that offers people Options, Opportunities, Possibilities and Solutions (OOPS), to deal with the “OOPS” that happen in life. “Oops” as we define it is, anything that goes wrong or is upsetting.

The website aims to foster a place where members can “confess” without being ridiculed or condemned. It also banks on a positive and supportive community, where members help each other out.

The website has several features that any member can take advantage of. There is the Apology To, Apology Due, Confessions and Virtual Conscience.

In Apology To, a member can publicly post a message to acknowledge that something went wrong. If the member is hoping to be forgiven, he can choose to receive a private reply to his Apology To message. Comments can also be made by other members, who can give words of advice or encouragement.

In Apology Due, a member can post a message wherein he expects another to say sorry for the latter’s fault. This is beneficial for anyone who wants to vent his anger, frustration or disappointment, instead of repressing or harboring ill-will against another. The member can likewise receive a private message so that the parties involved can resolve their problems away from public eyes.

In Confessions, a member can post anonymous message to admit a wrongdoing to no one in particular. it is a way of expressing bottled-up feelings; a way of unburdening one’s conscience. Other members can likewise comment on the particular confession. And since the poster of the message is made anonymous, the comments generated will hopefully be focused on the confession, and not on the person confessing.

In Virtual Conscience, members can send positive, guiding, and supportive messages to others. Here’s how it works: “If you know someone is heading down the wrong path, making a bad choice, or just needs a little encouragement, send them a message. It’s easy, simply enter the e-mail address of the recipient, choose a greeting, enter their name, and write your message. Preview the message then save it as a draft, send it or schedule a date and time for delivery.” This feature can be used as a more gentle way of telling someone you know that you are there to help for any problem that the recipient may be going through. It’s a nice way of nudging him back to the right direction, so to speak.

Because sensitive matters are discussed in a website like this, things can possibly get a little unruly. Thankfully, this has not happened in Oops….I’m Sorry. Allie, the website’s creator, makes sure that nothing inappropriate will happen regarding the members or contents of the site. She says in her blog:

Oops…..I’m Sorry is simply a tool. Membership is free, truly free, no hidden agendas no surprise spam. Oops…..I’m Sorry is on the World Wide Web where anyone can find and use it. It was designed to be a site people would like to visit and use (low on visual noise). It was designed to make the task at hand, dealing with something difficult, easier. I have put myself out there, my picture is on the home page and now I have shared this story so you would know who’s behind this site. I have and will continue to do everything I can to ensure the integrity of Oops…..I’m Sorry. That, I will not compromise.

No related posts.

Crowdsourcing Ads at Zooppa

Head Honcho — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:58:10 +0000

The cost of making an advertisement can be staggering. One video advertisement can cost as much as $250,000. While an advertising firm can offer you an output for a couple of thousand dollars, you are not assured that the final work will be great. The same is true for print and radio ads.

For companies looking for an alternative to the advertising firms that charge exorbitant amounts, Zooppa offers an innovative way of making advertisements - whether in print, video or radio. Trying to break away from the norm in advertising, Zooppa is crowdsourcing the ads that companies commission from its community

Zooppa’s mission is to create a space for social advertising through user-generated content. This means accessing the creative talent outside of the world of traditional advertising. For companies, it can mean that you can have a complete ad campaign at a fraction of the cost.

For any company interested in partnering with Zooppa, a contest is set up for every ad campaign that you are planning to launch. A creative brief detailing the brand and its target market is prepared for the particular contest. Zooppa users then submit their entries in line with the creative brief. Other users will then vote for their favorite entry to determine the winner of the contest. Zooppa will award cash prizes to the creators of the highest rated ads.

This format may be suitable for many companies. They can save on advertising expenses but still get high quality content culled from a large pool of talent that an advertising firm would be hard to match.

For individuals who are artistically inclined, Zooppa can be a good way to earn some extra money. There are many contests to join, giving anyone with talent a fair chance to win. The brand may use your winning ad for their online campaigns, or, in certain cases, their offline campaigns. There are also awards for runners-up including cash and other prizes.You may also collaborate with other users. Zooppa rewards this type of collaboration with a Bonus Team Prize . Since its inception, Zooppa has already awarded more than $300,000 to its members.

The way Zooppa works, it’s a win-win situation for the parties involved. The companies can get value for their money with the abundance of content submitted by Zooppa users. The users get to show their works and earn recognition and some cash along the way.

Here is a short video explaining how Zooppa works:

Unleash Your Creativity at Creative Commons Australia

Head Honcho — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:16:41 +0000

Generally, whenever you create a literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual work, you have copyright over that. This means that you have “all rights reserved” - that is, you have exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, and prepare derivative works.

There is an alternative offered by Creative Commons in which an author can choose to merely have some rights reserved. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which lets an author or creator share his work to the public for free. It seems illogical to just let others copy your work for free, but in this age of open-source innovations, it’s not as crazy as it seems. In fact, there are now over 160 million different images, sounds, films and written works which are CC-licensed.

Creative Commons Australia takes things a step further by holding a competition which lets anyone remix and manipulate a CC material.

The competition, named “Pooling Ideas,” runs from the March 2-23, 2009. The site explains the idea behind the contest:

Digital technology has changed the way we create and share our ideas. A world of music, literature, art and video is now available at our fingertips, and it’s all ours to play with, remix and manipulate. But what does this mean for our ideas of creativity and originality, yours and mine?

Over the next few weeks, we invite you to creatively interpret the theme We are what we share, and upload your creation to Pool. It’s free and there are no time limits or format requirements.

Anyone interested in joining can do anything with CC-provided material. You can tweak an image by adding new elements or by changing the color. You can introduce another instrument to a sound recording. You can edit videos, or mash several videos together. You can remix a poem, or add another chapter to written work. The only limitation is your imagination.

The winner of the competition gets a trophy for you to brag with. More importantly, you can get an internship with Australia’s ABC Radio National to co-produce a Night Air with John Jacobs. The top three entries also receive a USB disk filled with remixable material. Select works will also be showcased at the Ideas Festival and pulled apart by CC Australia’s panel of experts at the “We Are What We Share” seminar held at the State Library of Queensland on March 28.

Below is a video serving as an example of what an contest entry can look like, and explaining at the same time what Creative Commons is.

StoryMash

Head Honcho — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:12:59 +0000

StoryMash was launched on November 1, 2007. The model is based on crowd-sourcing where a creative community of like-minded writers and readers, specifically lovers of fiction, work on a story - chapter by chapter - and collaborating to create a profitable end-story or piece.

It is a platform for either new or adept writers, authors or lovers of fiction to gather up and work together on creating short stories, screenplays, or novels.

Aside from collaboration, it is also a venue for writers to explore different writing styles and receive feedback and constructive criticism from the community.

The chapter is the basic authorship unit on StoryMash and each chapter has a forum open for discussion where readers of a chapter can add in their comments, feedback, ideas and encouragement to the author of the chapter thus the collaboration. There is a chapter ranking system available once the author publishes a chapter after being convinced with its content or quality.

Other readers and writers can then come together and add new or follow-up chapters. This ends up with branches and branches of chapters creating multiple middles and, of course, multiple endings.

For Writers
All interested authors and writers out there can get wonderful benefits from participating.
Writers, new or experienced, are given the opportunity to work with other like-minded writers that they have never encountered or met before thus encouraging learning through constructive criticism
StoryMash has a generous arrangement with the writers. They are allowed to keep the copyright to their work and give StoryMash a non-exclusive license allowing StoryMash to adapt and resell the combined output.

With every piece written comes the possibility of income through ratings by peers and readers as based on the success of their work. You share 50% of the advertisement revenue as a reward for your writing.

The site also hosts writing contests that earn up to $1000 of cash prizes awarded at the end of the period for a contest.

StoryMash is also a venue for writers to show a sneak preview of their work to possible readers and audience. This benefits the writer or author for the free advertisement for their work.

For Readers
Chapters are rated by readers. They are encouraged to rate and choose the best branches of chapters producing a fiction work that is most entertaining.

Readers are encouraged to vote the best chapter from a handful of proposed chapters. They influence which story idea gets written next. The praise and encouragement or feedback and criticism offered to the authors are very much beneficial for the author’s creative writing.

Aside from that, the readers get to read the most interesting fiction stories they can find. If the story read is not the way you want it to turn out, don’t fret! You can register and write the follow-up chapter of your liking.

Serebra Connect: A Service Buyer’s Market

Head Honcho — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:08:38 +0000

In today’s uncertain times, every penny counts. For businesses, it is important to minimize unnecessary costs without sacrificing the output. For any individual, getting extra work can also mean extra money for the rainy days.

There are a number of freelance platform sites in which service buyers and sellers can meet. Another site - Serebra Connect tries to make a name in online freelance market.

If you are a service buyer, posting a task is fairly straightforward. You first have to select the job category from a number of choices - whether it is in admin support, writing, finance or whatnot. You then have to enter the task details - indicate what the job entails, the desired skills and/or experience, and your schedule and budget. After reviewing all the details, your job is now up for bidding. You may also just find a seller and hire him directly for a task.

If you are a service seller, you can browse through the jobs and bid on the task of your choosing. Of course, the lower the bid, the better your chances of winning the project. But it is not always an indication that you are going to win the bid, Your qualifications is most likely the main reason why a buyer should pick you. To increase your chances of winning bids, you may opt to become a Serebra Connect Pro. In order to become a Pro, you have to take and pass one or more courses relating to the categories of tasks posted. There is one catch, though: only the first course is free. If you want to take more courses, you have to pay for them.

Serebra Connect is also trying to foster a robust community of buyers and sellers, through its forum and its blog. The blog is specially noted for giving useful tips to buyers in running their business.

It can be observed from the site that the tasks posted are not as many as in other freelance platform sites such as oDesk. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are a service buyer, you can take advantage of this because there are more service sellers vying for a small number of jobs. This can result to more cutthroat bidding, which is to your advantage. This may be a disadvantage for the service seller, but if you have a great resume and skill set, this would not really be a problem. All in all, Serebra Connect is worth a try, whether you are a buyer or a seller.

Naked & Angry

Head Honcho — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:19:22 +0000

There is beauty in the consistent and the predictable. This applies to patterns as well. The delicate hand-made ones are even better than the Photoshop generated pieces. And this beauty applied on your dad’s or your date’s tie in a limited edition, 100% silk one would be an admirable sight. Some people may not dig ties but will sure notice those if they came from Naked and Angry.

skinnyCorp, the creators of Threadless, had another fun idea launched – Naked and Angry - a site dedicated to patterns. This site uses the same crowdsourcing idea as Threadless and enables people to crunch out ideas for wonderful and elegant patterns and have these voted by the site visitors. From these same developers of Threadless come crowdsourced pattern designs. skinnyCorp created Naked & Angry which became an extension of Threadless. While Threadless became a venue for tee shirt designs, Naked & Angry is focused on higher quality products through the pattern designing approach.

Have a design in mind? Visit and register at Naked & Angry and submit the product of your imaginative juices – a pattern. Other members of the site will then vote the best design that will be up for scoring for two weeks. The final score will be given after that period and the highest scoring design will get to have manufactured items and have products created through it. The owner of the winning patterns will receive a $750 cash prize and a Naked & Angry item. How’s that for motivation? Five winning patterns every season will get to have 5 - 15 items created from them and the items will range from ties to pillows to socks and wallpapers.

Unique patterns for example would get printed on silk ties. Yes, the word unique would best describe it. The reason for the uniqueness? Low quantity, high quality. Every Naked & Angry tie comes in a limited edition release and is 100% silk – “constructed out of a process wherein different colored yarns are woven together. So rather than simply being screened onto the product’s surface, the design is actually incorporated into the tie’s fabric.”

These ties are delivered to you in a hardwood, satin-lined box. “It’s the perfect size and shape to store your tie. A gentle spring-loaded recessed hinge keeps the box closed tightly without the need for a clasp, keeping your tie free of dust and lint. The Naked & Angry logo is applied to the top of the box using a traditional heat-branding technique. A great deal of time and effort went into designing the perfect package to hold and protect your tie for as long as you love it. ” This packaging was even showcased in a Las Vegas trade show and emerged the winner for best retail packaging. What a quality packaging for a quality product.

artistShare

Head Honcho — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:16:20 +0000

Maria Schneider won a Grammy award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2004 for her album Concert in a Garden. But there is one thing unique about this triumph – her album was distributed exclusively over the Internet. This success was only made possible through artistShare.

Normally, an artist would have to have their projects funded in the recording industry and go through labels, distributors and retailers. This somehow results in issues with property rights and problems with the artist’s share of the success of their albums. Brian Camelio, the founder of artistShare, created an alternative for this through crowdsourcing.

artistShare is a new paradigm, a platform for artists to “take control of their creative output and can, through the participation of their friends and fans, realize their artistic visions with art and inspiration the only motives.” This was launched in 2000 and may be one of those crowdsourced sites even before the term “crowdsourcing” was coined.

To simply put it, artistShare allows fans of artists to show appreciation by funding their recording projects and, in return, get involved in the creative process and some other benefits as a fan. For example, Maria Schneider’s fans made payments that ranged from $9.95 to $18,000 and in exchange got benefits ranging from a download of the album to “an executive producer credit on the album; an invitation to a recording session; a case of signed bottles of Maria Schneider Riesling; special access to some concerts; a bird-watching session with Schneider in New York’s Central Park; and some other goodies.”

The artists, through artistShare, get 85% of the sales for downloaded products. The company takes the rest. This is, of course, a much more favorable contract term and with the success of the site, you can conclude that it works.

One main point that moves artistShare is the fact that fans are able to see or peek into the creative process of the artists that they like – the ideas while being formed, how the song was made, up until the final recording of the album. This is a good model that is used by artistShare and creates a different experience for the fans.

The site is on the roll with its successes which includes another Grammy Award in 2008 for Best Instrumental Composition by Maria Schneider for “Cerulean Skies”. All these successes could be summed up in the CEO’s words – “As long as there are artists and fans to appreciate that artist’s work, there will be artistShare.”

StubHub: The Online Marketplace for Tickets

Head Honcho — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:23:42 +0000

Let’s say you’re planning to surprise your significant other by buying two theater tickets. However, your partner already made plans for the show date, and you suddenly lose the urge to watch the show. What will you do with the tickets?

Or suppose you just found out that your favorite band is having a concert in your area, but the tickets are already sold out. You want to watch the concert so badly, but there is not a ticket seller in sight. Where will you turn to?

Easy. Just go to StubHub to sell or buy tickets of whatever sort.

StubHub is the biggest ticket marketplace online. It is where buyers and sellers meet for tickets for sports, concert, theater and other entertainment events. The company’s unique online marketplace, dedicated solely to tickets, provides all fans the choice to buy or sell their tickets in a safe, convenient, and highly reliable environment.

StubHub is a gift from heaven for those who want to unload their tickets. Since the The website is gets huge traffic from those looking to buy, a seller has better chances of actually selling his tickets. While StubHub gets a 15% sales commission, listing is free. With this set-up, you won’t pay anything to StubHub until your ticket is sold. It sure beats standing outside the venue on the day of the event, scalping the tickets (which may be illegal in some countries and states).

StubHub is also beneficial to those who want to buy tickets. Since the site is one huge ticket marketplace, a buyer has a good chance of closing a great deal. For instance, an NBA ticket may sell for $196 in Ticketmaster. Compare that to StubHub prices, which can go for as low as $91 for the same ticket. What’s more, you can be sure that the transaction is safe and secure.

StubHub has created a niche online by being the premier secondary ticket sales website. It has turned out to be a viable model, and it even has tie-ups with major organization. Company partners include the New York Yankees, Chicago Bears and the University of Southern California along with nearly 60 teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and NCAA complemented with music artists like Madonna and companies such as ESPN and American Express.

Check out the video below, featuring StubHub founder Jeff Fluhr.

Your Video Ads at Realpeoplerealstuff

Head Honcho — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:28:21 +0000

The NFL Superbowl, one of the United State’s biggest sporting events, is famous not just for the game. It is also famous for the commercials that are shown during breaks. Understandably, the price of a 30-second commercial spot is sky-high ($3 million, to be exact) because of the large audience that the show garners. This phenomenon also shows that the video commercial is still one of the most effective - of not the most effective - marketing tools there is. It is more powerful than print or radio/audio ads because you can incorporate text, image and sound in a video commercial.

That is also the reason why Youtube is very popular. Everyday, Youtube gets millions of hits from all around the world. In this fast-paced world, videos are much easier to digest than pure text. Another reason for Youtube’s popularity is that it allows anyone to create, upload and share videos with millions of people.

These factors may be the moving force why the website Realpeoplerealstuff was launched. There are already many websites exclusively featuring classified ads, the most famous of which is Craigslist. But these sites are limited to showing pictures and text. Realpeoplerealstuff exclusively showcases user-generated video ads.

Realpeoplerealstuff sees the potential of merging a classified ads website like Craigslist and a video website like Youtube. Realpeoplerealstuff is banking on this changing web landscape:

Advertising is migrating to the web in video format. Realpeoplerealstuff.com combines the hottest Internet trends in one, easy-to-use site: e-Commerce, snarky writing, funny videos, everyone’s desire to be a star and video sharing. Because it’s video, you can tell people a lot more about what you’re selling than what they can see in a couple of photographs on craigslist.com or eBay.

If you are interested in posting a video ad starring yourself, you first have to sign up as a member. Prepare your video, using your digital camera, camcorder, webcam or even your cellphone. Once you have finished the video (which must be under 3 minutes), all you have to do is post in on the site, together with the details of the oriduct or service that you are offering. You can make your ad more specific by adding tags, the price, and some brief description of you product or service.

Even if you don’t have anything to sell and are just looking around, Realpeoplerealstuff is a great place to canvass for things that you need. You can browse the ads by location or by category. It is much easier on the eyes, and you can get some laughs on the way.

On paper, the concept of Realpeoplerealstuff is really good. So will this trend pioneered by Realpeoplerealstuff become the standard? Only time will tell.