2010 marks the beginning of the end of Web 2.0. Just a decade since the starting gun was fired on the .com collapse. With the last collapse went billions of dollars of investor money and high profile company flame outs like Boo.com, Excite @home followed by M&A freak shows such as AOL/Time Warner.

Crowdsourcing harnesses the power of collective thinking and doing to solve problems – often big problems. Crowdsourcing and Cloud computing together deliver a new reality of burst-community and burst-computing. The US and UK governments are actively adopting Crowdsourcing to change the way in which citizens comment on and alter laws and regulation.

blur Group, the leading Crowdsourced Creative Agency, today launched a new Crowdfunding initiative aimed at helping tomorrow’s entrepreneurs find money for FREE under the strap line – ‘Social Funding for Tomorrows Ventures!’ Using its skills, software and knowhow blur Group have been quietly recruiting entrepreneurs from around the world under project ‘Innovatrs‘.

Crowdsourcing has become one of the hottest trends on the Web. But who are the real experts? Here is our list of hottie Crowdsourcing leaders and a link to their Twitter page. Follow them and watch the space unfold.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition government today announced a major Crowdsourcing initiative called Your Freedom. It’s a great start – assuming the public gets beyond their keyboard apathy. But what else could the coalition do?

Nick Clegg and David Cameron’s UK Tory-Lib Dem coalition today unveiled a major Crowdsourcing initiative called ‘Your Freedom’. Nick Clegg announced on British TV and in the leading newspapers that this is the largest government Crowdsourcing programme to date. Really?

This video about says it all. blur Group’s roots. Tomorrows organization with todays trends — design-driven, Crowdsourced and social media marketed. All in the cloud — defining and driving Agency 3.0. Why blur Group turns more than a few heads. Join us.

The term Crowdsourcing was coined in 2006 by Jeff Howe. But it’s roots go way back. Its early beginnings are collectives. Particularly the artist collective which was a way for a bunch of folk to get together and succeed better as a group than as individuals. Hey, it worked for the impressionists.

Crowdsourcing is the latest Web buzzword – it can also be as confusing as a tuk-tuk ride through Bangkok. Handle Crowdsourcing with care.

Crowdsourcing is becoming the Web’s hottest buzzword. It could kickstart the next Web. Like blogging, Web 2.0, social networking and social media defined the last decade of the Internet, Crowdsourcing could shape the next. And it should.

Web 2.0 was all about the ‘social revolution’. Broadband, cheap laptops and smartphones allowed the masses to access free or nearly free software to converse and create. It unleashed the social media revolution we now depend on.

Traditional venture capital is at a Crossroads. The industry is still young by many standards, and like all spotty teenagers, it’s changing. The first and second generation of professional VC’s have learned a bunch of things, sadly most at the expense of the entrepreneurs they backed and the investors they sold.

The art world is a changing. Slowly, underground yet profoundly. The first 1,000 years of the art market was patron-centric. Call it Art 1.0: The patron – generally the aristocracy or church – owned the artists and ran their lives, wives and commissions. The artist was their decorator, creator and muse.

There is a lot of buzz around B2C Crowdsourced advertising campaigns. The likes of Pepsi and Unilever have stolen the Web bylines with marketing concepts suckled from diverse crowds of video producers and other creatives using cash prizes and social networks.

The Conservative party have been making a lot of noise about Crowdsourcing. Obama is its pioneer. But they have little in the way of practical details about Crowdsourcing strategies and mechanisms. Here is a list of applications of Crowdsourcing in government that we think could prove the most effective.

The concept of ‘agency’ or the role of ‘agent’ has not changed much in 100 years. Particularly when it comes to the creative agency. But there’s something a brewing in agency land.

blur Marketing took the FT Digital Media conference social. blur’s Crowds and clouds jazzed things up at the eventful conference and ricocheted speakers perspectives across the Twittersphere and social networks. Read all about it here.

It used to be that great design cost the earth. Leading design agencies positioned themselves as reassuringly expensive. Assured rip off more like. That was before the Internet spawned over 210 Million Websites. Before one third of the US working population found itself in design related jobs. Before Apple. Pre Steve.

Forget Crowdsourcing — check this dude kite surfer clear a pier. He’s got a life! You?

b-uncut is fast emerging as the worlds leading artist Crowdsourcing platform. The beginning of Art Market 2.0. Here are some examples. Find more photos like this on b-uncut.net

People have been commissioning artists for a thousand years. It is one of the earliest forms of trade. Kings, Queens, Lords then industrialists, pioneers, even pirates took artists in and fed, housed and paid them to make great art. The artist commission is as old as time.

Following our ‘What is Crowdsourcing?’ initiative here’s a great video explaining the phenomenon. Jeff Howe, who coined the term Crowdsourcing, tells us what it’s all about.

The marketing services industry is changing. Big agencies are getting it from all sides. Google has eroded their media buying divisions. Social media is challenging their PR departments, while YouTube is confusing the hell out of TV advertising production. And mobile marketing – well that’s a whole new game of tennis.

Crowdsourcing in plain English video. Just launched — Viral. Informative. Cool.

A quiet revolution is under way in the art world. One that few expected and most missed. Because it’s on the Web; called b-uncut. It was started in 2007 by a group of contemporary artists, led by Philip Letts, as a new kind of collective. One without borders. One bound by the Web. They’re vision [...]