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as the competition among implementation options, realization paths, and the range
of actors increases.
Today, via crowdsourcing anyone can come up with a design, a slogan, or sell
their photos, without being a professional designer, advertising specialist or photog-
rapher. Fans are recognized as a powerful source for generating new ideas, joining
the exclusive domain of marketers, engineers, and designers. The actions of fans
through crowdsourcing media platforms provide an important key for understand-
ing the business models of the crowdsourcing as a driver toward value creation. The
transformation of corporation from a manufacturer to a provider of platforms for
user-generated content illustrates the extent to what the participation of fans is
embedded in a business model where profi t is being generated also by fans. This
will intensify severely as ubiquitous competition not only within a professional
stream but from anywhere will increase. “If we think of a contemporary of Edison -
the ingenious Nikola Tesla, that is often considered the more brilliant inventor of the
two, we cannot omit the fact that he is also the one who commercially fared even
worse. His work includes amongst many others, pioneering work on wireless com-
munication, the induction motor, x-rays, radar, energy weapons, weather control,
and especially, long distance and wireless energy transmission. His many brilliant
and often visionary inventions, as well as his profound scientifi c work are said to
have helped “usher in the second industrial revolution. Yet, he never became a suc-
cessful businessman himself. Good ideas require necessary skills and means to turn
into successful products (Weiers
2014
, p. 9).” The broader landscape, therefore, is
shifting. Innovation became more effective and more democratic. It also became
faster - and less a leisurely exercise. On the one hand, there are inventors. Now
anyone invents. Anyone can come up with an idea, no matter the skills as a busi-
nessman, no matter the experience, no matter the employment situation, age, eco-
nomic standing, or social origin. Ideas are democratic. Anyone can profi t from their
idea. “If innovation is indeed 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration, you too have to
sweat it (Weiers
2014
, p. 204).” Innovation becomes more effective as the competi-
tion increases, and the implementation process becomes more professionalized, bet-
ter utilizing existing expertise, skills, and resources.
Crowdsourcing is the most recent approach to user-driven innovation. The term
appeared for the fi rst time in 2006, in Jeff Howe article “The rise of crowdsourcing,”
published in the online magazine Wired (Howe
2006
). The word itself is a combina-
tion of two: crowd and outsourcing, which create the portmanteau - crowdsourc-
ing - together. Jeff Howe defi ned crowdsourcing as follows: crowdsourcing is the
act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an
employee) and outsourcing it to an undefi ned, generally large group of people in the
form of an open call (Howe
2006
). Jeff Howe did not invent the concept, but only
the name and defi nition, which covers a very wide range of actions often differing
in its essential features. As a form of user-driven innovation and co-creation, crowd-
sourcing is not simply a marketing promotion tool but a process through which
companies can apply individuals' open innovation to their innovation efforts
(Hopkins
2011
), a form of “outside-in” collaboration in Chesbrough (
2006
) sense
of the term. Despite the growing implementation of crowdsourcing practices in
