In a recent article from Computer World, the concept of crowd sourcing is explored. According to Jeff Howe of Crowdsourcing.com, crowd sourcing can be defined as:
"the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call."
Thanks to likes of Wikpedia and YouTube, users are clamoring to put their ideas out onto the web, and companies can gain from that by hosting programming competitions to fit their needs. "It's an incredible virtual workforce that is literally always on task," Ken Alfred of Constellation Energy says. "It's almost like a sport, where people see each other as competitors, and that's what drives what we've seen as high-quality code."
While the benefits of crowd sourcing for companies are saving time and money, they must also be careful to not let the inmates run the asylum and make sure that the advice they are getting comes from a diversified group. Also, the problem of intellectual property comes into play for programmers who do not necessarily win the competition but whose ideas are used by the companies anyway.
I think crowd sourcing is an interesting concept and indicates a further economic trend of globalization. So much of what is being done in technology is through collaborative efforts and sharing. I wonder how crowd sourcing will affect the job market in the years to come in the IT world. Between out sourcing, open sourcing, and crowd sourcing, it's certainly hard to tell.