Crowdcasting is the combination of

broadcasting Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

and

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

. The process of crowdcasting uses a combination of push and pull strategies first to engage an audience and build a network of participants and then harness the network for new insights. Those insights are then used to shape broadcast programming. These insights and concepts can include new product ideas, new service ideas, new branding messages, or even scientific breakthroughs. These insights are extracted from participants' submissions.

Push

The 'push' aspects of crowdcasting involve a public announcement of a prize for a particular innovation, invention, achievement, or accomplishment (such as the announcement of the

Ansari X-Prize The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 () prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled afte ...

in 1996). This stage of crowdcasting serves to engage a ''specific target audience'' using compelling offerings or incentives as a call to action.

Pull

The 'pull' aspects of crowdcasting involve building and ''harnessing'' a community of passionate participants. Crowdcasting competitions have a viral effect, as interested participants refer others to the event. Once the community is built, it can be harnessed to provide fresh perspectives, ideas, insights, prototypes, or radical breakthrough innovations.

InnoCentive InnoCentive is an open innovation and crowdsourcing company with its worldwide headquarters in Waltham, MA and their EMEA headquarters in London, UK. They enable organizations to put their unsolved problems and unmet needs, which are framed as � ...

is an example; its challenges tap into a community of over 100,000 scientists who might provide that unexpected innovation. Openpitch.com an upstart, has embraced the concept of crowdcasting to form a virtual advertising agency. The fundamental concept of crowdcasting—harnessing a specific, often expert, community of participants—separates OpenPitch from user-generated content (UGC) sites. Much like Innocentive, OpenPitch does not share or post submissions to the overall community during development. Instead, the sites keep user submissions confidential, protecting the intellectual property rights of both the posting company and the solutions provider. What is lost by not following a more open

model is gained by a policy that, arguably, attracts a more professional, dedicated user base.

Crowdcasting in action

Aside from the advertising space, the merger of crowdsourcing with broadcast programming has been largely unexplored. One of the first to launch a "crowdcasting" application allowing listeners to take control of a radio station is LDR / "Listener Driven Radio". "Listener Driven Radio" is a software application that allows listeners to go online, or to their mobile phone, and offer their input into what plays next on the radio station. The program constantly absorbs listener input, song votes, and comments on music and automatically adapts radio station programming in real-time. Clear Channel Communications, Cox Media Group, CBS, Cumulus, Harvard Broadcasting, and many major broadcasters in the USA, Canada, and Europe are using Listener Driven Radio's technology to give audiences the ability to influence on-air programming.

Internet-based crowdcasting

Crowdcasting is also no longer confined to traditional broadcasting platforms due to current technological advances. For instance, there is the case of the Internet-based platforms, which feature convenient and automated capabilities for collecting, storing, and analyzing data. This is demonstrated in the platform created by

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and ap ...

for

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...

, the crowdsourcing solution enables the coffee chain to source ideas from its customers through suggestions for improvements in their outlets. The same strategy has been employed by companies like

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

, LG, and

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when they use CrowdSpring to search for new creative ideas. Startups like Elance also integrate crowdcasting into their operations as a value-added service. The

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

is another example of an Internet-based crowdcasting platform. This can be the case once an organization taps it to enable stakeholders to self-organize as a crowd so that content about the organization can be produced and disseminated. Here, the 'push' and 'pull' strategies are employed when engaging a community of stakeholders and building a network of participants ('push'), which is then harnessed to gain insights ('pull').

Differences

John Seely-Brown and John Hagel III discuss the transition from 'push' to 'pull' innovation this way: "Rather than treating producers as passive consumers whose needs can be anticipated and shaped by centralized decision-makers, pull models treat people as networked creators even when they actually are customers purchasing goods and services. Pull platforms harness their participants’ passion, commitment, and desire to learn, thereby creating communities that can improvise and innovate rapidly."''McKinsey Quarterly 2005'', #3 "From push to pull: The next frontier of innovation"

References