There was a discussion on R4 this PM on the above. Apologies if this is old hat to many of you.
During the programme they interviewed Rob McEwen the CEO of Goldcorp who at the time owned the ailing Red Lake gold mine in northwestern Ontario.
He was convinced there was plenty of gold still to mined if only they could find it. So he triggered a virtual gold rush by issuing an extraordinary challenge to the world's geologists: We'll show you all of our data on the Red Lake mine online if you tell us where we're likely to find the next 6 million ounces of gold. The prize: a total of $575,000, with a top award of $105,000.
This was unheard of before. Briefly, the story can be found here.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/59/mcewen.html It seems to have been a pretty good idea.
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.