I’ve been invited and have joined the TechDirt insight community. It’s an interesting approach to crowdsourcing. Members of the Insight Community are given cases (topics to write about) and each case has it’s own payment associated with it. In some instances, you are the exclusive author on a topic but on “challenge cases” your response competes with others. Once you contribute an article on a topic, you can participate in discussion with others responding on the topic.

The format is simple and straight forward. I wasn’t overly impressed by the technology but I’d say the experience was good. I can see a lot of benefit for companies using this as a resource. It’s a great way to get a few professional opinions on a topic. Although there hasn’t been a lot of discussion around my current case, the opportunity for professional discussion is tremendous.