Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Contemporary (2000–) ·2006
Crowdsource
crowd outsource
- Meaning
- To obtain work, information, or opinions from a large online group.
- Source words
- crowd + outsource
- Coined by
- Jeff Howe
- Year
- 2006
Background
Howe coined the word in *Wired* magazine (June 2006). The word preceded its business model: Wikipedia was already five years old; the word gave the phenomenon a handle, and a wave of startups named themselves after it.
Contemporary (2000–)
Faster coinage, faster canonisation. Brexit and podcast both reached the OED within a decade of first use — historically rapid. Social media has made visibility, not invention, the rate-limiting step.
Two words, one coinage.
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