Crowds For Hire – niche crowds ready to contribute

General Idea Generation & Solving

• AddictLab - creative think tank
• Brain Reactions - post questions and get ideas/feedback on them
• Fellowforce - innovation challenge board covering many disciplines
• iBridge Network - platform for university innovation
• IdeaConnection - idea marketplace and problem solving
• Idea Crossing - organize innovation quests
• IdeaMagnet - powering idea generation
• Ideawicket - open innovation portal
• Innovation Exchange - open innovation market place
• WhyNot - idea exchange

Science & Research

• Innocentive - crowdsourcing scientific solutions to corporate problems
• Science Commons - generic license agreements
• TekScout - crowdsourcing R&D solutions
• YourEncore - crowd of retired veteran scientists and engineers

Freelance work

• elance - freelance marketplace
• Guru - freelance community
• Ki Work - sourcing online work
• odesk - global marketplace for remote work

Micro-tasks

• Amazon Mechanical Turk - micro-task crowdsourcing
• HumanGrid - small online tasks solving

Technology

• Ninesigma - technology problem solving
• TopCoder - programming competitions
• Yet2.com – crowdsourcing technology solutions to problems

Product Design

• CrowdSpirit - crowdsourcing the design of innovative products

Creative/Graphic Design

• 99 Designs – design crowdsource contests
• CrowdSpring – network of graphic designers
• Genius Rocket – crowdsourcing creative community
• Inkd - market for print design

Entrepreneurs & Inventors

• IdeaBlob - monthly contest for entrepreneurial ideas
• Incuby - online community for inventors

Consumer Ideas & Feedback

• CrowdSound – ideas from customers/users
• Idea Bounty - a social think tank

Health & Medical

• Eureke medical - medical open innovation platform

Enterprise Crowdsourcing/Open Innovation Sites

• Betavine - Vodafone’s mobile app community
• BMW Customer Innovation Lab - in german
• BT - British Telecom’s Innovation Initiative
• Dell IdeaStorm - external idea sourcing
• Fluevog - open shoe design
• GameChanger - Shell’s coporate crowdsourcing
• IBM InnovationJam - internally focused idea generation project
• IBM ThinkPlace - idea generation and collaboration
• Intel Cool Software - Intel’s sensing platform
• Jones Soda - crowdsources flavours and pictures for their labels
• Kraft - innovate with Kraft
• LEGO Factory - LEGO co-creation tool
• My Starbucks Idea - shaping the future of Starbucks
• Nesta - UK National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts
• P&G Open Innovation Challenge - external idea sourcing in Britain
• Unilever - Ideas4Unilever - corporate venturing
• Vocalpoint - Pgamp;G’s network for women

Crowdsourcing Contests

• City of Austin - feedback on City of Austin’s website
• Electrolux Design Lab - annual design competition for students
• The Guardian - Crowdsourcing analysis of MPs expenses
• Muji - improving and suggesting new designs
• National Geographic - crowdsourced Earth-saving ideas
• Nespresso - design contest for coffee machines
• Peugeot - Peugeot’s design contest
• Picnic Green Challenge - ideas to save the planet
• Smith Chips - crowdsourced flavour selection
• Staples Invention Quest - idea contest
• Xprize - incentivized crowdsourcing competition

Crowdsourcing-at-their-core Companies

Consumer/Customer Input

• Get Satisfaction - crowdsourced customer service
• You Suggest - ideas from customers

Clothing, Gifts & Other Products

• Cafepress - shop, create or sell what’s on your mind
• JuJups - personalized gifts
• Naked&Angry - Threadless for ties and wallcoverings
• Polyvore - crowdsourced fashion
• Spreadshirt - shirt community
• Threadless - create and sell your tshirts

Funding

• Artistshare – fans funding new artists
• A Swarm of Angels - crowdfunding a film
• Kickstarter - fund ideas and endeavours
• Kiva – crowdfunded micro-loans to 3rd world entrepreneurs
• My Bandstock - fan funded investment in bands
• Sellaband – crowdfunded bands

Miscellaneous

• Better than the Van – crowdsourced community connecting bands to places to stay
• Crowd Flower – crowdsourcing for human-required tasks
• Elastic Lab - film production
• Groupon - crowdsourced group discounts
• Help me Investigate - a place to collaborate with others to investigate things
• Inkling Markets - use wisdom of the crowd for forecasting
• iStockPhoto - user-generated photos
• Healogica – crowdsourcing clinical trials
• Help me Investigate - a place to collaborate with others to investigate things
• Hollr - crowdsourcing cool stuff finding
• Quirky - production of crowdsourced ideas
• Stumble Upon - crowdsourced website discovery engine
• uTest - user experience testing
• Wikipedia - peer produced encyclopedia

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