Hey, you should be reading our blog over at Chaordix!

This crowdsourcing game isn’t like it was three years ago when we started. We’ve long moved past the point of being able to count all of the crowdsourcing initiatives on our fingers. To this end, we put together a handy list for us to make sure we stay on top of all the cool things going on.

Turns out, it is a pretty good resource, so we thought we’d share it with everyone. It is so great to see so many different initiatives involving crowdsourcing!

Crowds for Hire – niche crowds ready to contribute

General Idea Generation & Solving

• AddictLab - creative think tank
• Brain Reactions - post questions and get ideas/feedback on them
• Fellowforce - innovation challenge board covering many disciplines
• iBridge Network - platform for university innovation
• IdeaConnection - idea marketplace and problem solving
• Idea Crossing - organize innovation quests
• IdeaMagnet - powering idea generation
• Ideawicket - open innovation portal
• Innovation Exchange - open innovation market place
• WhyNot - idea exchange

Science & Research

• Innocentive - crowdsourcing scientific solutions to corporate problems
• Science Commons - generic license agreements
• TekScout - crowdsourcing R&D solutions
• YourEncore - crowd of retired veteran scientists and engineers

Freelance work

• elance - freelance marketplace
• Guru - freelance community
• Ki Work - sourcing online work
• odesk - global marketplace for remote work

Micro-tasks

• Amazon Mechanical Turk - micro-task crowdsourcing
• HumanGrid - small online tasks solving

Technology

• Ninesigma - technology problem solving
• TopCoder - programming competitions
• Yet2 – crowdsourcing technology solutions to problems

Product Design

• CrowdSpirit - crowdsourcing the design of innovative products

Creative/Graphic Design

• 99 Designs – design crowdsource contests
• CrowdSpring – network of graphic designers
• Genius Rocket – crowdsourcing creative community
• Inkd - market for print design

Entrepreneurs & Inventors

• IdeaBlob - monthly contest for entrepreneurial ideas
• Incuby - online community for inventors

Consumer Ideas & Feedback

• CrowdSound – ideas from customers/users
• Idea Bounty - a social think tank

Health & Medical

• Eureke medical - medical open innovation platform

Enterprise Crowdsourcing/Open Innovation Sites

• Betavine - Vodafone’s mobile app community
• BT - British Telecom’s Innovation Initiative
• Dell IdeaStorm - external idea sourcing
• Fluevog - open shoe design
• GameChanger - Shell’s coporate crowdsourcing
• IBM InnovationJam - internally focused idea generation project
• IBM ThinkPlace - idea generation and collaboration
• Ideas4Unilever - corporate venturing
• Intel Cool Software - Intel’s sensing platform
• Jones Soda - crowdsources flavours and pictures for their labels
• Kraft - innovate with Kraft
• LEGO Factory - LEGO co-creation tool
• My Starbucks Idea - shaping the future of Starbucks
• Nesta - UK National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts
• P&G Open Innovation Challenge - external idea sourcing in Britain
• Vocalpoint - Pgamp;G’s network for women

Crowdsourcing Contests

• City of Austin - feedback on City of Austin’s website
• Electrolux Design Lab - annual design competition for students
• The Guardian - Crowdsourcing analysis of MPs expenses
• Muji - improving and suggesting new designs
• National Geographic - crowdsourced Earth-saving ideas
• Nespresso - design contest for coffee machines
• Peugeot - Peugeot’s design contest
• Picnic Green Challenge - ideas to save the planet
• Smith Chips - crowdsourced flavour selection
• Staples Invention Quest - idea contest
• Xprize - incentivized crowdsourcing competition

Crowdsourcing-at-their-core Companies

Consumer/Customer Input

• Get Satisfaction - crowdsourced customer service
• You Suggest - ideas from customers

Clothing, Gifts & Other Products

• Cafepress - shop, create or sell what’s on your mind
• JuJups - personalized gifts
• Naked&Angry - Threadless for ties and wallcoverings
• Polyvore - crowdsourced fashion
• Spreadshirt - shirt community
• Threadless - create and sell your tshirts

Funding

• Artistshare – fans funding new artists
• A Swarm of Angels - crowdfunding a film
• Kickstarter - fund ideas and endeavours
• Kiva – crowdfunded micro-loans to 3rd world entrepreneurs
• My Bandstock - fan funded investment in bands
• Sellaband – crowdfunded bands

Miscellaneous

• Better than the Van – crowdsourced community connecting bands to places to stay
• Crowd Flower – crowdsourcing for human-required tasks
• Elastic Lab - film production
• Groupon - crowdsourced group discounts
• Help me Investigate - a place to collaborate with others to investigate things
• Inkling Markets - use wisdom of the crowd for forecasting
• iStockPhoto - user-generated photos
• Healogica – crowdsourcing clinical trials
• Help me Investigate - a place to collaborate with others to investigate things
• Hollr - crowdsourcing cool stuff finding
• Mob4Hire - crowdsourced mobile app testing
• Quirky - production of crowdsourced ideas
• Stumble Upon - crowdsourced website discovery engine
• uTest - user experience testing
• Wikipedia - peer produced encyclopedia

If you’re on the list, we’d love to hear from you. If you think you SHOULD be on the list, we’re interested in what you’re up to as well.

Photo by: Jayz Internet Solutions