Allan Hoffman

For years, I’ve wanted to start a photoblog, but it seemed like something of a hassle, what with downloading your photos, sorting through them, uploading them, etc. Well, the iPhone changed all that. The camera’s always with me, or just about, and I’m able to edit and tweak the photos right on my iPhone with an ever-expanding array of awesome, yet amazingly inexpensive, iPhone apps.

The upshot? I’ve got a photoblog, What I See Now.

I’ve been fascinated by the crowdsourcing trend, and I’ve even delved into it, using 99designs, a website for crowdsourced design (logos, business cards, etc.) for the logo for Web100. Now there’s crowdsourced writing. Yep, just as 99designs helps businesses set up contests for logos and whatnot, essentially getting people to contribute without any guarantee they’ll be the winner, crowdedtext sets up writing contests for press releases, slogans, and the like.

“Holding a writing contest is also a great way to find writers you want to hire in more official capacities, as you can see their writing style before investing too much time,” according to the crowdedtext site.

On pricing:

Listing your writing contest on CrowdedText is only $4.95. We also charge 10% of the prize you are offering as a prize handling fee. This is in place so both the contest holder and the winning writer do not have to worry about arranging payment.

Will this work for writing? I’m not so sure.

I’m updating this website right now, from a static HTML site into one managed through WordPress. Things may look a little wacky for the next several hours (hm, maybe even a day or two).