Crowdsourcing is a sourcing model in which individuals or organizations obtain goods or services, including ideas, voting, micro-tasks and finances, from a large, relatively open and often rapidly evolving group of participants. As of 2021, crowdsourcing typically involves using the internet to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. The word "crowdsourcing" itself - a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing" - was allegedly coined in 2005.
Crowdsourcing is not necessarily an "online" activity; it existed before Internet access became a household commodity.Major differences distinguish crowdsourcing from outsourcing. Crowdsourcing comes from a less-specific, more public group, whereas outsourcing is commissioned from a specific, named group, and includes a mix of bottom-up and top-down processes. Advantages of using crowdsourcing may include improved costs, speed, quality, flexibility, scalability, or diversity.Some forms of crowdsourcing, such as in "idea competitions" or "innovation contests" provide ways for organizations to learn beyond the "base of minds" provided by their employees (e.g. LEGO Ideas). Tedious "microtasks" performed in parallel by large, paid crowds (e.g. Amazon Mechanical Turk) are another form of crowdsourcing. Not-for-profit organizations have used crowdsourcing to develop common goods (e.g. Wikipedia). The effect of user communication and the platform presentation should be taken into account when evaluating the performance of ideas in crowdsourcing contexts.Crowdsourcing can play a role in democratization.