Crowdsourcing: A Lesson in Trust

One of my favorite apps for my iPhone is called Waze. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Waze debuted in 2007 as a free mapping and navigation app. What set Waze apart were the contributions that its end users could make to the maps. If a user saw something incorrect or new, all it would take was a few taps to submit an update. Over time, as the app’s user base grew, the ability to submit other road oddities was added. Soon, Waze users could submit real-time reports of traffic problems, road hazards, and even police traps. If a route appeared excessively slow to the app’s navigation algorithms, it would reroute drivers without a single tap. Developers and users saw it all as an ingenious idea. (source)

And so did Google. In 2013, the search giant purchased Waze from its developers and investors for a massive $1.1 billion. It was reported at the time that the reason Google pursued the app and ultimately bought it lock, stock and barrel is because the company perceived Waze as “a threat to its home-grown navigation app” (source). How in the world could a startup that relied almost entirely on the contribution of end users take on a behemoth like Google? Near the time of Waze’s acquisition, more than 6 percent of iPhone users were engaging the app. That might seem like a small figure, but consider this: Apple sold more than 150 million iPhones in 2013 alone (source). So to Google, a 6 percent slice of the iOS market would have netted a massive number of users — and easily worth a billion dollars.

Waze isn’t the only player in this space, but it is easily one of the most recognizable. Telenav, which makes navigation apps like Scout for personal and commercial uses, announced in 2014 that it was switching to the user-edited OpenStreetMap platform to provide faster updates to its maps (source). There are other categories of apps that rely on a community of users for information as well. Yelp enables customers to leave reviews of businesses near them. Weather Underground pulls information to its website from user-submitted weather reports and their personal weather stations to provide hyperlocal conditions and forecasts. And then, of course, there’s Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that most anyone with a little bit of time on their hands can edit.

These are just a few examples of a number of apps, websites and services that are based on crowdsourcing — a term to describe the collection and utilization of user-generated content on a mass level to serve a larger purpose or initiative.

I mentioned a statistic two posts ago which noted that nearly half of all Web users now turn to social media before making a purchase online. Those unsolicited thoughts and reviews on products can be seen as a form of crowdsourced information, as well. There’s a reason why we see this emerging trend: because Millennials want to collaborate. In a 2014 survey, more than half of Millennial-aged shoppers (ages 18-33) said they were strongly influenced by their friends’ recommendations of a brand, and more than half of respondents also said they preferred brands that were willing to change based on customer feedback (PDF). This generation is telling us in no uncertain terms that they want to be heard and they want their words to be valued. So it makes perfect sense why crowdsourced apps like Waze are a hit. Waze built its entire app on the idea of not only soliciting user feedback, but using it to make its service better for everyone else, instantly. It’s one of the best demonstrations of the power of crowdsourcing, but it’s not the only one.

The concept of crowdsourcing is so lucrative that it has even given rise to a new form of digital philanthropy known as crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe. If crowdsourcing calls on people to donate their time and effort to improve something, why wouldn’t those same people also be willing to put their money where their collective mouth is if they discovered a great idea? Crowdfunding projects have successfully raised millions of dollars and paid for the development of everything from smartwatches (source) to movie sequels (source) to super PACs (source). The results have had a major impact across multiple industries and will continue to do so through advancements in technology and thought.

Crowdsourcing has tremendous potential in numerous fields, and I admit that I benefit from it myself as a user of many of the apps named in this article. Even so, I have serious reservations about its usefulness and wonder if at times it can do more harm than good. The law enforcement community raised this very point in 2015 when the CEO of the National Sheriff’s Association declared that Waze “poses an enormous risk to deputies and police officers” by allowing users to report the locations of police along their routes. The 2014 slaying of a New York officer was even tied to the Waze app (source). There have been questions as to the validity of crowdsourced weather data for forecasting (source). Negative reviews on Yelp — even fake ones — have been known to sink businesses (source). Clearly, we haven’t quite worked the bugs out of crowdsourcing just yet.

So, where do we go from here? Honestly, I have no idea. Consumers have a right to be heard and they have a right to collaborate. The marketplace of ideas is what makes America stand out in the world. But consumers also have a right to accurate information, and I’m not so sure that any of the major players in crowdsourcing have figured out yet how to ensure that. Ultimately I think the value of crowdsourcing really comes down to our ability to accept the risk that comes along with it. There’s plenty of inaccurate data out there, but it’s up to me as an end user to decide whether to believe it or not and live within the possibility that the person from whom I’m getting my information is just wrong. But in reality, haven’t we been doing that all along anyway with traditional media? Perhaps, then, the real lesson of crowdsourcing is the value of integrity.