Difference between revisions of "1060: Crowdsourcing"

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This is comic number 1060.  It was posted on May 25, 2012.
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{{comic
[[1059|Previous]] [[1061|Next]]
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| number   = 1060
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| date      = May 25, 2012
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| title    = Crowdsourcing
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| image    = crowdsourcing.png
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| titletext = We don't sell products; we sell the marketplace. And by 'sell the marketplace' we mean 'play shooters, sometimes for upwards of 20 hours straight.'
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}}
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==Explanation==
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{{w|Crowdsourcing}} is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. [[Cueball]] "crowdsources" the process of getting a company and a prospective employee together. Cueball describes it as helping people with ideas find funding, via Kickstarter, but rather than setting up a system to facilitate the process he plans to use social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter). If Cueball's company is crowdsourcing this matchmaking then he's allowing the people to find a company on their own merit, his company is not involved in the process at all. Cueball seems to be describing this process with buzz-words to impress a group of people who could themselves be businesspeople.
  
[[File:Crowdsourcing.png]]
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In the title text Cueball states that instead of doing any work they play video games, "shooters" refer to first person shooters, for hours on end.
  
== Image Text ==
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==Transcript==
We don't sell products; we sell the marketplace. And by 'sell the marketplace' we mean 'play shooters, sometimes for upwards of 20 hours straight.'
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:[Cueball is standing in front of a flowchart on a wall, indicating with a pointer. A man and two women are looking on with interest. One woman holds a briefcase.]
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:Cueball: We crowdsource the design process, allowing those with the best designs to connect—
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:Cueball: via already-in-place social networking infrastructure—
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:Cueball: with interested manufacturers, distributors, and marketers.
  
== Description ==
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:Nobody caught on that our business plan didn't involve ''us'' in any way— it was just a description of other people making and selling products.
This comic is a take on the way that a lot of new businesses "crowd source" their products, so they do not have to actually do anything.  Which the image text indicates is only "playing shooters", which is short for first person shooter video games.
 
  
[[Category:Comics|1060]]
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{{comic discussion}}
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[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Revision as of 04:29, 10 May 2015

Crowdsourcing
We don't sell products; we sell the marketplace. And by 'sell the marketplace' we mean 'play shooters, sometimes for upwards of 20 hours straight.'
Title text: We don't sell products; we sell the marketplace. And by 'sell the marketplace' we mean 'play shooters, sometimes for upwards of 20 hours straight.'

Explanation

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Cueball "crowdsources" the process of getting a company and a prospective employee together. Cueball describes it as helping people with ideas find funding, via Kickstarter, but rather than setting up a system to facilitate the process he plans to use social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter). If Cueball's company is crowdsourcing this matchmaking then he's allowing the people to find a company on their own merit, his company is not involved in the process at all. Cueball seems to be describing this process with buzz-words to impress a group of people who could themselves be businesspeople.

In the title text Cueball states that instead of doing any work they play video games, "shooters" refer to first person shooters, for hours on end.

Transcript

[Cueball is standing in front of a flowchart on a wall, indicating with a pointer. A man and two women are looking on with interest. One woman holds a briefcase.]
Cueball: We crowdsource the design process, allowing those with the best designs to connect—
Cueball: via already-in-place social networking infrastructure—
Cueball: with interested manufacturers, distributors, and marketers.
Nobody caught on that our business plan didn't involve us in any way— it was just a description of other people making and selling products.


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Discussion

Even better is when you can repackage an existing open-source program and sell it for a tidy profit. It happens. Davidy22[talk] 13:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that technically "asset flipping"? --JayRulesXKCD what's up? 14:22, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I personally like to think Cueball's audience are potential investors and that Cueball is trying to convince them to fund his "company" 141.101.104.49 23:10, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Given that he is referring to it as a "business plan" and the people he's showing look fairly corporate (as much as one can tell from stick figures) and he's phrasing it like a pitch, I'd say this is exactly what he's trying to do. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 02:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Isn't that called "Multi-Level Marketing" (MLM) aka Amway *cough* pyramid scheme *cough* 108.162.238.137 16:31, 15 September 2019 (UTC)