Il crowdsourcing, the 'relocation' not to a country but to a 'crowd' of Internet users, is one of the most powerful 'alternative energies' created by the telematic revolution.
Recently this procedure has been adopted to study the evolution of music: are musical traditions and tastes shaped by the great geniuses of music, from Bach to the Beatles, or do they develop, as in Darwinism, by the evolutionary pressure of the innate tastes of the population? The first of the links below describes how scientists from Imperial College London are testing the second hypothesis using a 'crowd' of 7 volunteers recruited from the Internet. But crowdsourcing is also used for more practical purposes, such as raising capital to implement innovative ideas.
At a time when banks, which have never been at the forefront of financing start-ups, are pulling the oars more than ever, many sites that bring together capital supply and demand have sprung up like mushrooms. Estimates count 450 sites of this type, most of them in America but also in Europe and China (there is no news of Italian sites). The the greater is Kickstarter: inventors present their proposals on the site and invite venture capital from thousands of subscribers. For example, Pebble, a watch that displays on the screen messages sent from the iPhone of those who wear it on their wrists raised $10,3 million. AND at the film festivals of Sundance and Cannes 10% of films were crowdsourced. It is estimated that crowdsourcing around the world is starting to raise 2,8 billion dollars this year, up sharply from 1,5 billion last year and from 500 million in 2009.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20120518195400data_trunc_sys.shtml
http://www.economist.com/node/21556973
