Crowdsourcing Grocery Shopping

Called Instacart:      Personal Shopping remains a narrow market.   With crowdsourcing come quality assurance issues.   " .... In contrast to the high overhead of Webvan, which had its own refrigerated warehouses and a fleet of trucks, Instacart is built on a crowdsourcing model. Its 10 full-time employees, mostly engineers, work from a small office in San Francisco’s South Park neighborhood. Its app sends customer orders to about 200 independent Bay Area personal shoppers, who receive commissions based on the number of items and orders they deliver in their own vehicles. The app features detailed maps of local supermarkets and can direct the personal shoppers to specific aisles. Founder Apoorva Mehta says Instacart’s “secret sauce” is its fulfillment software, which allows the online retailer to combine orders placed at different times and fill them from different stores—supplementing frozen food from Trader Joe’s with fresh fruit from Whole Foods (WFM) and cereal from Costco (COST). Customers assemble their orders with lengthy drop-down menus on Instacart’s website or app. ... " 

Games Engaging Customers

In Innovation Excellence:  About game dynamics engaging your customers.   Includes a number of examples I had not heard of.   Also makes an often forgotten point about its linkage to crowdsourcing: " ... Gamification is the use of game methods and game thinking in order to engage users or solve problems. It is an innovative crowdsourcing technique which is gaining increasingly widespread acceptance in business, education and research.  ... " 

Crowdsourcing Grading

I remember being part of a group that did this long before it was called crowd sourcing,   unofficially and informally checking assignments and providing help within a group.  Here in MIT Technology Review:  " ... First Trial of Crowdsourced Grading for Computer Science Homework ... The latest online crowdsourcing tool allows students to grade their classmates’ homework and receive credit for the effort they put in ..... " 

Unilever Crowd Sourcing Shower Taking

Not too many details, but consumer goods giant is exploring crowdsourcing for future consumer need and product development.  Using the online package eYeka.  The work is to develop the next generation of showers.  " ... This universal daily ritual leaves you feeling relaxed, clean and fresh. Long showers are even more enjoyable, but they have a considerable environmental impact: showering uses a lot of water and requires a lot of energy to heat that water. So how could we enjoy showering while having a minimal impact on the planet and on our wallets? ... "

Investor Herd Dynamics

Crowd and herding dynamics were always an interest.  With the thought of using them for physical retail understanding.  Investing is different, but this post has perhaps some related insights.  Perhaps for crowdsourcing behavior?

Advances in Tagging

In GigaOM:  Tagging is a long time interest. Costs and power requirements have always been an issue.  This also relates to an internet of things, where simply finding a physical thing can be a first step  Note also the use of crowd sourcing.

" ... Ever since Bluetooth Low Energy chips emerged, a growing number of object tagging and tracking services have sprouted up to take advantage of the technology’s potential as a proximity-based sensor. Innova Technology is one of those companies, but starting this week it’s offering a twist to its new Protag Elite devices.

In addition to using Bluetooth LE as a kind of radar to keep track of your valuables, Protag now has new crowd collaboration features into its apps so strangers can help you find your stuff if it gets lost. On Wednesday Innova plans to kick off an Indiegogo campaign to raise $100,000 for the new credit-card-sized Elite tag, which will eventually incorporate these new features. The first 1,000 backers can get its rechargeable device for $29.... " 

Crowdsourced AI Includes Everyday Knowedge

In New Scientist:  An AI that is apparently equivalent to a 4 year old in a verbal test.   A big part of intelligence is our ability to manage our knowledge of the world and apply it to decisions. " ... Step forward ConceptNet. Developed by Catherine Havasi and her team at the MIT Media Lab ConceptNet draws upon a crowdsourced database of millions of statements describing simple relationships between everyday objects, such as "a fawn is a deer" or "ice cream is capable of melting".  Havasi describes the system as containing "the kind of information that everybody knows about the world but that nobody ever writes down because we learn it too early". ... " 

Predicting Earthquakes with Smartphones

An interesting example of using a network of smartphones as sensors, and converting that data into a form that can detect earthquakes and then communicate them through the same network. How predictive this system can be in accurate prediction is unclear.  What are the costs of false positives? " ... California Institute of Technology researchers have created an app called CrowdShake  (Still in prototype) that provides early earthquake warnings by converting a smartphone's accelerometer into a seismometer. ... "The accelerometer is already in the phone, the location is something the phone knows, it's not something that a person has to tell it," Guy notes. "And of course your smartphone knows exactly what time it is." .... The accelerometer serves as a sensor gathering vibration data, which is analyzed and then returned to the community with warnings when necessary. ... " 

And also a video on the subject.

Crowds vs Innovation

In Innovation Excellence:  It should be remembered that innovation is often be an act of going against the crowd.   Creative people do go against the crowd: " ... At minimum, they do their own thing. At best, they lead the crowd. Highly creative people tend to be non-conformists who do their own things irrespective of the crowd. Some purposely go against popular trends in order to demonstrate their uniqueness and creativity. Others, often those who are most creative, often seem blithely unaware of the crowd, so focused are they on doing their own things.  ... "