A new concept call Crowdsourcing was coined in 2006. Crowdsourcing is based on out sourcing the work to general unknow public. E.g. wikipedia sources the work of creating its knowledge base by sourcing the work to general internet user.
Link: http://www.samiviitamaki.com/2007/02/16/the-flirt-model-of-crowdsourcing-collective-customer-collaboration/