How enterprises use crowdsourcing (infographic)

As enterprises generate increasingly large mountains of data, they often turn to powerful software to make sense of it all.

But big data tools aren’t always enough; some tasks require actual human input.

CrowdFlower, like Amazon Mechanical Turk or oDesk, is a market for crowdsourced labor. Through CrowdFlower’s platform, freelance workers can tackle tasks for CrowdFlower’s clients, which include major enterprises like Unilever, Apple, Google, and eBay.

The workers don’t earn very much, sometimes as little as $2 an hour — in fact, CrowdFlower is currently involved in a lawsuit that will determine whether U.S. crowd laborers should be paid as contractors or employees. But whether or not the plaintiff Christopher Otey defeats CrowdFlower in court, the company has found that only 29 percent of people who complete crowdsourced tasks list “earning money” as their top motivator; they’re nearly as likely to do it for enjoyment or just to pass some time.

CrowdFlower surveyed more than 2,000 of its crowd workers, looking specifically at the types of projects its 50 largest customers are working on, to come up with its “State of Enterprise Crowdsourcing” report. The company discovered the top industries using its platform, the crowd’s favorite tasks, and daily activity stats, among other information. Then it compiled all that data into one handy infographic, which we’ve included below.

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