Amazon uses crowdsourcing to locate Steve Fossett

by Tom | Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 6:40 am | No responses.

Last week, modern day adventurer Steve Fossett went missing in the Nevada desert. On hearing the news Virgin boss, close friend and fellow thrill-seeker Richard Branson leapt into action, using Google Earth to help find him.

Now Amazon have stepped in. They are using their crowdsourcing service, Mechanical Turk, to help in the endevour. They've captured hi-res images of the area where Fossett is suspected to have gone missing. Each person who volunteers their time is asked to spend 60 minutes scanning through photos, marking areas that should be investigated further. People have already uncovered a number of potential locations. Amazon used the same technique a few months ago, when Jim Grey, a Silicone Valley scientist went missing.

You can join the hunt for Steve by going here

Why have I blogged this?
Amazon has put their Mechanical Turk service to great use here by using crowdsourcing to appeal to people's community spirit. What i find really interesting is the president it sets for future uses of crowdsourcing

Think about it. Getting local councils and police services to use similar techniques, say to help in resolving community issues, could be really engaging. A crowdsourcing approach could be used to build community spirit and more easily involve people in the day-to-day social issues that affect their area.

Via Techcrunch

Technorati Tags: civic, crowdsourcing, mechanical turk, social responsibility