Slam Dunk or Snake Oil?

The contests, crowdsourcing social good, often strike me as rudderless. Pepsi is a great example. Consider how they are investing in America by letting the crowd decide which charities matter most (tinyurl.com/y7jzpnz). To me, this leaves a lot to be expected of the crowd, especially given how wrong crowds can go, as evidenced by MIT Media Lab crowdsourcing research as encapsulated in the book, "Honest Signals" (tinyurl.com/5omnaq).