for the birds.

As I started my research on crowdsourcing, the only examples that I could think of were Threadless.com and Wikipedia.  Crowdsourcing seemed to me to be somewhat of a novelty or a concept only valid for entertainment and amusement.  Not so.

Take ornithology, for example (that's the study of birds).  Ornithology was transformed by the internet age.  As Jeff Howe says, 

"Before the birth of the Internet, bird-watching was the province of an enthusiastic, small cadre of devotees.  But in recent years bird-watching has undergone a rapid growth in popularity.  By 2006, nearly 50 million Americans were engaged in some form of "wildlife watching".  

That's a lot of people watching birds!  What is the product of such an upswing in avian aficionados?  It's not just greater harmony with the outdoors.  This new generation of bird-watchers has made huge contributions to what we now know about birds.  In fact, according to Chris Wood, a researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,

"In many cases amateur birders are more competent at gathering, correctly identifying, and recording numbers of birds than professional ornithologists.  This basic form of data collection is precisely what birders have always specialized in."

That thought draws my attention to the plight of the professional birders, the ones who have done their homework and committed to full-time observation.  This is the human version of disruptive innovation.  What do you do if you're trying to make a living studying birds, and other people do it just as well, or apparently better, for free?

I have a feeling that this isn't a problem unique to the bird world.