Can you outsource to the public and get people to work for you for nothing? It’s one of the possibilities created by the interactive nature of Web 2.0, but why on earth would anyone do something for nothing? Kudos and respect are the most obvious motives; in much the same way as expensive software developers give their time and expertise for free to work within the open source community.

But I don’t think that software is the only type of service that can be outsourced to experts for free. Take a look at the furore kicking off at present over the logo for the 2012 London Olympic games. The branding company Wolff Olins has recently created a logo for the games that appears to be universally hated.

When it was unveiled on Monday this week, the detractors started an immediate hatchet job on the logo. Doctors appeared on television to talk about the risk to epilepsy suffers because of the bright flashing primary colours in the London logo. Some 85 per cent of the public voting on the BBC online news poll said they hated the design. Fewer than four per cent of  BBC readers liked the new design. Even the Wall Street Journal turned over a whole page to describing the mess.

Personally I thought it was not bad. But then again, I’ve got prints by Banksy hanging up in my living room at home. I think the designers did a good job of not pandering to the usual desire for a cute cartoon character (World Cup Willie anyone?).

But think about it for a moment: could it actually have been a deliberate ruse to get the public involved in designing a logo? Perhaps the largest ever outsourcing programme for a marketing project? Was the intention all along to annoy as many people as possible with a Tiswas-like logo, so that the public would then come up with dozens of great ideas, one of which might bubble to the surface as the best of the bunch. It’s viral marketing, but it also looks like outsourcing the marketing of the London Olympics to a lot of people who are working for nothing. What’s new?