When you have a job that needs to be done and you are not that keen to do it yourself, then you could very well decide to ask someone else to do it. This is known as "outsourcing" the job, and has been a part of business for a very long time. With the increased popularity of social networking it has become possible to get work or information from a greater number of people. This is the age of "crowdsourcing". It is becoming very popular. 

Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon which would be all but impossible without the Internet. There is no more convenient way of getting a message to a wide range of people than placing it on the Internet where it can be read by anyone who happens to stumble across it, or find it buried in the middle of their Twitter feed. Whether you need to know about good restaurants in a city you are visiting for the first time, or the lyrics in the first line of a song, posting your query on Twitter should get you a flood of helpful replies. 

If this sounds a lot like placing a question or an advertisement on a bulletin board, it is. But the difference between Twitter and a bulletin board is that Twitter stretches across the world and the replies are automatic. It is bigger, and it is faster and this is just one reason why Twitter has become hugely popular and is relied upon by so many.