Peer production

Peer production (also known as mass collaboration) is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of a large number of people is coordinated towards a shared outcome.

Peer production is a process taking advantage of new collaborative possibilities afforded by the internet and has become a widespread mode of labor.Free and open source software and open source hardware are two examples of peer production. One of the earliest instances of networked peer production is Project Gutenberg, a project in which volunteers make out-of-copyright works available online. Examples include , an online encyclopedia, and Linux, a computer operating system. For-profit enterprises mostly use partial implementations of peer production, and would include such sites as Flickr, Etsy, Digg, and Delicious. Peer production can also be utilized by sharing open source hardware designs to be replicated with digital manufacturing technologies such as RepRap 3-D printers. The number of such designs is growing exponentially on free design sites such as Youmagine. Peer production refers to the production process on which the previous examples are based. Commons-based peer production is a subset of peer production.

Crowdsourcing products such as community cookbooks are a form of peer production. Gooseberry Patch has used its customer/friend community to create its line of exclusive cookbooks for over 18 years.

...
Wikipedia