Crowdsourcing is a specific sourcing model in which organizations use contributions from Internet users to obtain needed services or ideas. Crowdsourcing was coined in 2005 as a portmanteau of crowd and outsourcing. This mode of sourcing to divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result was already successful before the digital age (i.e., "offline"). Crowdsourcing is distinguished from outsourcing in that the work can come from an undefined public (instead of being commissioned from a specific, named group) and in that crowdsourcing includes a mix of bottom-up and top-down processes. Advantages of using crowdsourcing may include improved costs, speed, quality, flexibility, scalability, or diversity. Crowdsourcing in the form of idea competitions or innovation contests prov