The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Claudia Menashe needed pictures of sick people. A project director at the National Health Museum in Washington, DC, Menashe was putting together a series of interactive kiosks devoted to potential pandemics like the avian flu. An exhibition designer had created a plan for the kiosk itself, but now Menashe was looking for images to accompany the text. Rather than hire a photographer to take shots of people suffering from the flu, Menashe decided to use preexisting images – stock photography, as it’s known in the publishing industry.
克劳蒂娅·马纳舍（Claudia Menashe）是华盛顿国家健康博物馆的项目负责人，正在组建一些宣传禽流感等潜在流行病的信息亭，为此她需要一些患者照片。一个展会设计师负责了信息亭的设计，现在，克劳蒂娅要给文字说明配上一些图片。她没有去找摄影师来拍摄流感病人的照片，而是决定从已有的照片中选用一些。在出版业里，这些已有的照片被称为库存照片（stock photography）。
In October 2004, she ran across a stock photo collection by Mark Harmel, a freelance photographer living in Manhattan Beach, California. Harmel, whose wife is a doctor, specializes in images related to the health care industry. “Claudia wanted people sneezing, getting immunized, that sort of thing,” recalls Harmel, a slight, soft-spoken 52-year-old.
2004年10月，她不经意中发现了马克·哈默尔（Mark Harmel）的照片库。马克住在加州的曼哈顿沙滩，今年 52 岁，说话很温柔，身材略显单薄。他是一位自由摄影师，专门拍摄与保健相关的照片。他的妻子是一名医生。“ 克劳蒂娅想要一些人们在打喷嚏、接受疫苗注射等诸如此类的照片，”马克回忆道。
The National Health Museum has grand plans to occupy a spot on the National Mall in Washington by 2012, but for now it’s a fledgling institution with little money. “They were on a tight budget, so I charged them my nonprofit rate,” says Harmel, who works out of a cozy but crowded office in the back of the house he shares with his wife and stepson. He offered the museum a generous discount: $100 to $150 per photograph. “That’s about half of what a corporate client would pay,” he says. Menashe was interested in about four shots, so for Harmel, this could be a sale worth $600.
国家健康博物馆雄心勃勃地希望在 2012 年之前能够在华盛顿的国家广场占据一席之地。不过眼下，它还只是一个缺钱少粮的新机构。“他们的预算很紧张，所以我开出了针对非营利机构的价码”,马克说道。他给了博物馆一个很慷慨的折扣价：每幅 100 到 150 美金。“这个价钱，大约是那些商业客户所付价钱的一半，”马克说。克劳蒂娅对四幅照片很感兴趣，如果成交的话，马克将会有 600 美金的收入。
After several weeks of back-and-forth, Menashe emailed Harmel to say that, regretfully, the deal was off. “I discovered a stock photo site called iStockphoto,” she wrote, “which has images at very affordable prices.” That was an understatement. The same day, Menashe licensed 56 pictures through iStockphoto – for about $1 each.
经过了几周来来回回的商谈，克劳蒂娅最后通过邮件告诉马克，很抱歉，这笔买卖谈不成了。“我发现了一个叫做 iStockphoto 的照片库站点，”克劳蒂娅写道，“那里的图片价格在我承受范围之内。”其实，克劳蒂娅已经很委婉了。就在同一天，她从 iStockphoto 上一口气订购了 56 幅照片的授权，而价格是——每幅 1 美金左右。
iStockphoto, which grew out of a free image-sharing exchange used by a group of graphic designers, had undercut Harmel by more than 99 percent. How? By creating a marketplace for the work of amateur photographers – homemakers, students, engineers, dancers. There are now about 22,000 contributors to the site, which charges between $1 and $5 per basic image. (Very large, high-resolution pictures can cost up to $40.) Unlike professionals, iStockers don’t need to clear $130,000 a year from their photos just to break even; an extra $130 does just fine. “I negotiate my rate all the time,” Harmel says. “But how can I compete with a dollar?”
iStockphoto 最初是一群图片设计师用来免费共享和交换图片的地方，它开出的价格是马克的百分之一都不到。怎么会这样呢？事实上，iStockphoto 为业余摄影爱好者们开辟了一块集市，这些人包括了家庭主妇、学生、工程师、舞蹈演员等等。现在，网站有 2.2 万名左右贡献者，其普通图片的开价都在 1 美金到 5 美金之间。（那些非常大的高清图片则可能要到 40 美金。）不同于专业摄影师的是，这些业余爱好者们不需要一年挣 13 万美金来维持基本开支，130 美金的外快就能让他们心满意足。“我随时都可以接受人们的讨价还价，”马克说道，“但是，再怎么样，我也不可能争过 1 美金的开价。”
He can’t, of course. For Harmel, the harsh economics lesson was clear: The product Harmel offers is no longer scarce. Professional-grade cameras now cost less than $1,000. With a computer and a copy of Photoshop, even entry-level enthusiasts can create photographs rivaling those by professionals like Harmel. Add the Internet and powerful search technology, and sharing these images with the world becomes simple.
的确如此。经济学给马克的教训既残酷又明确：马克所提供的产品不再是稀缺物。现在，花不到 1000 美金就能买到专业等级的照相机。而计算机和 Photoshop 的使用，使得一个初级爱好者的作品都能与马克这样的专家的作品相媲美。再加上互联网和强大的搜索技术，这些图片很容易就被传播到世界的每一个角落。
At first, the stock industry aligned itself against iStockphoto and other so-called microstock agencies like ShutterStock and Dreamstime. Then, in February, Getty Images, the largest agency by far with more than 30 percent of the global market, purchased iStockphoto for $50 million. “If someone’s going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other businesses,” says Getty CEO Jonathan Klein. iStockphoto’s revenue is growing by about 14 percent a month and the service is on track to license about 10 million images in 2006 – several times what Getty’s more expensive stock agencies will sell. iStockphoto’s clients now include bulk photo purchasers like IBM and United Way, as well as the small design firms once forced to go to big stock houses. “I was using Corbis and Getty, and the image fees came out of my design fees, which kept my margin low,” notes one UK designer in an email to the company. “iStockphoto’s micro-payment system has allowed me to increase my profit margin.”
一开始，照片库行业一致抵制 iStockphoto 以及其他被称为“微库存商”的站点，像 ShutterStock 和 Dreamstime。但是在二月份，占全球市场 30% 的最大照片库片商 Getty Images 以 5 千万美金的价格收购了 iStockphoto。“如果有人试图跟你抢生意，那最好是把他变成你的生意的一部分，”Getty 的首席执行官乔纳森·克莱恩（Jonathan Klein）说道。iStockphoto 的收入以每月 14% 的速度增长，2006年的业务预期是授权 1 千万幅图片。这比 Getty 那些昂贵图片代理商们的销量高出了好几倍。现在，iStockphoto 的客户中既有像 IBM 和 United Way这样的大宗采购者，也有以前不得不从大图片商那里进货的小型设计公司。“我以前跟 Corbis 和 Getty 打交道，图片费用要从我的设计费中出，利润很低”，一位英国的设计师在给公司的邮件中写道，“iStockphoto 的低微价格使我的利润提高了。”
Welcome to the age of the crowd. Just as distributed computing projects like UC Berkeley’s SETI@home have tapped the unused processing power of millions of individual computers, so distributed labor networks are using the Internet to exploit the spare processing power of millions of human brains. The open source software movement proved that a network of passionate, geeky volunteers could write code just as well as the highly paid developers at Microsoft or Sun Microsystems. Wikipedia showed that the model could be used to create a sprawling and surprisingly comprehensive online encyclopedia. And companies like eBay and MySpace have built profitable businesses that couldn’t exist without the contributions of users.
真正的大众时代到来了！正如伯克利大学的SETI@home这类分布式计算项目利用了上百万台电脑的闲置处理能力，分布式人力网络也通过互联网把上百万人脑的闲置处理能力充分利用了起来。开源软件运动证明一群充满激情、专注技术的志愿者所组成的网络，写出的代码与微软、Sun等大公司里高薪供养的程序员们相比也不煌多让；维基百科表明这一模式可以创造出包罗万象、令人惊叹的在线百科全书；而 eBay 和 MySpace 这样的公司依赖用户的贡献创造了足以盈利的商业模式。
All these companies grew up in the Internet age and were designed to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are – they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia – as long as they are connected to the network.
所有这些公司都是在互联网时代成长起来的，其对网络化世界的意识与生俱来。如今，传统工业也开始被这种蕴藏在数以百万计的爱好者中的巨大生产力所吸引。在过去的十年里，公司们为了寻找廉价劳动力而把目光投向海外，投向印度和中国。而现在，这些劳动力在哪儿已经无关紧要了——他们也许远在天边，也许近在眼前——只要他们都被网络连接起来。
Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.
从产品设计软件到数码摄像机，科技在各个领域的进步使得工具的成本大大降低，以往横亘在业余爱好者和专业人士之间的壁垒消失了。不管是兴趣爱好者也好，还是业余工作者也好，甚至是偶尔为之的玩家们，突然之间有了一个可以让自己的付出获得回报的市场。而在从制药厂到电视台的各行各业中，那些头脑灵活的公司们找到了从大众中发觉潜藏天才的各种途径。当然，人力并不总是免费的，但比传统的雇员要便宜许多。这就是“众包”——不是“外包”。
It took a while for Harmel to recognize what was happening. “When the National Health Museum called, I’d never heard of iStockphoto,” he says. “But now, I see it as the first hole in the dike.” In 2000, Harmel made roughly $69,000 from a portfolio of 100 stock photographs, a tidy addition to what he earned from commissioned work. Last year his stock business generated less money – $59,000 – from more than 1,000 photos. That’s quite a bit more work for less money.
马克花了些时间才意识到发生了什么事情。“国家健康博物馆给我打电话的时候，我还从未听说过 iStockphoto，”他说道，“但现在，我认为它是堤岸上的第一个蚁穴。”2000年，除了合约工作，马克通过 100 幅库存照片获得了将近 6.9 万美金的收入，相当可观。去年，尽管他授权的图片超过了 1000 幅，但生意却有所缩水——只挣到了 5.9 万美金。也就是说，更多的工作，反而换来更少的收入。
Harmel isn’t the only photographer feeling the pinch. Last summer, there was a flurry of complaints on the Stock Artists Alliance online forum. “People were noticing a significant decline in returns on their stock portfolios,” Harmel says. “I can’t point to iStockphoto and say it’s the culprit, but it has definitely put downward pressure on prices.” As a result, he has decided to shift the focus of his business to assignment work. “I just don’t see much of a future for professional stock photography,” he says.
马克并不是唯一“受伤”的摄影师。去年夏天，照片库艺术家联盟的在线论坛上怨声载道。“人们发现他们的库存图片收入大大减少，”马克说，“我无法把这归罪于 iStockphoto，但它的确造成了价格下跌的压力。”有鉴于此，马克决定把生意重心转移到接受委派任务上。“我不看好专业照片库的前景，”他说。
