Remember that catchy TV ad jingle from our friends at Ford Motor Company back in the 1980s?  “Quality is Job One” was the tagline and it would be a very suitable anthem for those of us directly involved with crowdsourcing in 2012.  While there has been a lot of excitement and speculation about what might be next for crowdsourcing, none of this forward-looking conversation matters if quality isn’t in-place and the #1 priority for all of us.

An entire class of crowdsourcing exists where the crowd does not need to be motivated at all. What if the crowd does not even know it is doing work? I call this "passive crowdsourcing", as opposed to the typical active crowdsourcing (articulated in the crowdsourcing taxonomy umbrella).

Crowdfunding sites that curate naturally want to feature high quality projects, & they want to work with people that they trust. It improves the product as well as the experience for the users. And yet, It spurs the question: does curating defeat the purpose of using the crowd?

If the next person to stand in front of you (or your website) were going to end up costing you $50, would you complete the transaction? Or would you focus on the immediate loss of revenue and decide to blow them off? With each decision, you're deciding if a potential customer is worth the cost or not. An experience with Toyota, recently, got me thinking about these customer costs.

In this video podcast, David makes us realize that investment crowdfunding is still many months away, and speculation on how it will affect the entrepreneur and the financial market is still very much a spin of the roulette wheel. However, this is still a valuable time for some great questions: Is crowdfunding really crowdsourcing? Will crowdfunding follow crowdsourcing in being a march away from institutions? And, what will start-up funding look like when it lacks the expertise, guidance, and advice from traditional investors?

It’s hard to avoid Google. Most of us use one or another of their products. Even if you’re in the minority that doesn’t use it to search, you probably use its maps to look into your neighbor’s backyard or its analytics to figure out why no-one visits your website on Saturday night (hint: they aren’t out playing tennis). So when they make an announcement about a new product we can’t help but listen in rapturous silence.

The past 2 months have shown some major developments in both the worlds of European crowdfinancing as well as European developments in banking, and especially SME finance markets.

When it comes to persuasion, numbers don't like to share the spotlight. Statistics like to present themselves as fact, as hard data. Numbers, though, are often useless without context.

The Daily Crowdsource Crowd Leaders Program is our invite only program meant to give voice to the visionaries and leaders in the field, and this month we are happy to announce another addition, Shay Har-Noy, CEO of Tomnod.  

I know what you expect me to write. After all, I run a crowdfunding startup. I should be on the front lines of this thing – fighting for this bill to go through. I should be signing petitions, tweeting about it, calling my congresswoman to tell her why the JOBS ACT will save America. I definitely shouldn't be questioning it.