Caterham Seven

Project Splitwheel brings together gearheads from allover the world and allows them to vote on different concepts to create the world’s first crowdsourced sports car. Caterham Cars, the UK based manufacturer of the Caterham Seven has joined with Project Splitwheel and has agreed to create a prototype and ultimately manufactured in product, with the hope of being in full production by 2011.

“Cars are amongst the most hotly debated topics on the internet and for the first time we are going to channel some of that passion and energy into an exciting high-profile project with a real-world outcome,” says Piers Drake Project Splitwheels creator. “Every petrolhead dreams of running their own sports car company. Project Splitwheel is effectively the world’s first ‘virtual’ car manufacturer and as far as possible we will be asking our members to call the shots, just as if they were running a marque themselves.”

The project is open to anyone regardless of background. Users are able to collaborate on forums, Wiki’s and voting. Users will vote on key design features each week, everything from engine location to leather seats to the name of the car. Along with acting as a liaison with Caterham’s engineering team, Project Splitwheel will also provide guidance and input from automotive industry experts as required.

Project Splitwheel is on the right track, they’ve taken a huge task of designing a car and broke it into very small pieces. These pieces are much easier for the crowd to create and combine into a finished product. My only hope is that we don’t end up with something like The Homer:

You can register on the website now, they’re hoping to start Crowdsourcing this project in the new year.

Dragons Den is going into its 3rd season in Canada but originated from a similar show created by Sony in Japan which ran for 3 seasons, other versions have aired in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Netherlands and Finland. Most recently Mark Burnett signed a deal with Sony for the American rights the show will be called The Shark Tank,  and ABC are recently ordered a pilot. Contestants of Dragons Den will pitch their business or idea to the Dragons (businessmen and women looking for businesses to invest in) asking for an investment in exchange for a % of their business. After the pitch the Dragons pick apart the business trying to find out if it’s a good investment for their own money.  Several months back I had the opportunity to sit down with Sean Wise the Business Adviser for CBC hit business reality show Dragons Den but he is better referred to as the “Dragons Keeper”.  Some of you may recognize Sean’s name, is written several books, a regular columnist in the Globe and Mail, and also the CEO of VenCorps.

Sean says his show has real business people with real ideas, unlike Fox’s American Idol, which brings in contestant’s for shock value and amusement. “We don’t know pretend to know what the Dragons will fund, some things we thought they would turn down they have funded and others that we thought were a sure thing they have turned down” says Sean.

This season contesters had the opportunity to pitch their business to the Dragons thought YouTube, and the public could vote on their favorite pitches. Originally the top 10 would be invited to step into the den and pitch to the dragons but the quality was so high that an additional 8 were invited down to pitch their business.

Dragon’s Den is taking advantage of a growing trend in Crowdsourcing, using the crowd to organize the used generated content (the pitches), the crowds votes then bring the best to the top.  This process not only brings the top pitches to the attention of the dragons and also gives the community “ownership” of the show.   As a member of the crowd I want to know if the businesses I voted for were funded by the dragons. I was told that this season is already been a one million dollar deal a first for the show perhaps as one million dollar deal was a pitch that I supported by voting for it.

Dragon’s Den premieres September 29 on CBC television make sure you tune in to see if your favorite pitch made it to the air.

I wanted to test NameThis.com out so I made a project to come up with a name for a consumer show for men. I gave a description and a list of things that would be at the show and what names I was not looking for. So the 48 hours process started and I watched, and I noticed that I was getting a lot of Man or Guy names. These were fine but I wanted to try to get people to expand beyond that, so I went looking for a edit description feature and found non, so I had to email the team and they added “Although names with “Man,” “Men,” and “Guy” are good, try to come up with names that do not use those words”. I sorted though the list and invested in names I like, so I could have them at the top of my list. At the end of the round 3 names were selected as the winner. None of which I liked at all. I then lost my list of names I had invested in and had to search for them to sort out which names I liked. My top three names were:

* It’s a Guy Thing
* The Stag Show
* Live, Work, Play : The Modern Man

NameThis.com uses a predictive market platform, which allows users to invest in names to pick a winner. Then the winners are paid out based on which names had the most invested (I assume). As a project owner I was hoping to get access to that information. I would have liked to know who invested (demographic) in which name, how many people invested in which names (%), and I would have liked my votes to have a little bit more power (not all the power) but a little more weight than the average person. After all this is my name and I have to live with it, so I should be able to help pick who gets paid. Information is power so I hope that Kluster opens up the data to project owners soon.

What I love about Kluster so far is that they listened to their community unlike some other crowdsourcing communities. They relies that their community is driving their business and that if they are going to invest in the wisdom of the crowds then they should listen to their crowd.  In a series of blog post Kluster has asked its community what it should do to make its product better, and in a matter of weeks they have take those suggestions and put them into practice.

A great man once said, “Why do we fall, sir? So that we might better learn to pick ourselves up.”
Kluster has taken this to heart, they are not afraid to fall because each time you fall you learn and become stronger.
Keep up the good work and keep on listening.

The site also have a good amount of addition information here. If you have a few second try to guess how many regesterd taxi cabs are in New York and leave your answer here. Although it looks like that exparment has been curpted by less then steller people its still intresting. Enjoy.

crowdSPRING was so confident that crowdsourcing was the way of the future that they used their own marketplace to design their website. The company posted a project and offered a $5000 prize asking creative people from around the world to contribute designs. in the end eighty individuals from dozens of countries submitted over 330 designs. “We couldn’t have asked for better proof of our model,…. we definitively proved the power of the crowdSPRING model,” said Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING “We also showed that great creative talent exists in every corner of the world and comes from people you would never have guessed.” Marc Köhlbrugge, a new media student in The Netherlands, submitted the winning design during the competition, which ran for three weeks this spring. “I devoted all my free time to the project to make sure I would stand out from the crowd,” said Köhlbrugge “It worked”

crowdSPRING, is a online marketplace for creative services, and puts the power of crowdsourcing in the hands of individuals and businesses, giving them access to a largely untapped global pool of talent. CrowdSPRING is focused mainly on creating, Logos, Web designs and marketing materials. crowdSPRING allows buyers to post a creative project, and before you know it they have several different designs on their desk and they choose the one they like. On the flip side creative people use crowdSPING to get though the fount door, to prove that experience and title doesn’t make the best designer.

“When people buy art or music or movies, they see all the options available to them and then decide which they’d like to purchase. But the purchase of many other creative services has traditionally been a lot more risky,” said Mike Samson, co-founder of crowdSPRING “Buyers are asked to dig through portfolios, review past work and make a commitment before seeing the end product. crowdSPRING offers a better way. Buyers can now purchase the work they love at a price they set, without the risk.”

Risk is reduced on both sides because crowdSPRING guarantees that you (as a buyer) will get a minimum of 25 on any given project or you have the opportunity to back out of the deal. This makes it so that the creative people are not left at the mercy of the buyers with a lot of hard work going into a design and then a buyer pulling out. Instead a buyer must pay up front with the money being held in escrow waiting until a winner is chosen. In addition they use a rating and feedback method that shows how many projects they’ve posted (and completed), how many entries they’ve submitted, and what kind of feedback they’ve received. Best of all your intellectual property is protected by a free, customized written legal agreement for every transaction.

Hmmm perhaps I need crowdSPRING to help redesign CrowdsourceThis.com? What do you think?

If this sounds interesting then check out Crowded Games.

Crowded Games was launched in 2007 for one reason, to enable the community to design a xbox arcade game called Pond Hockey. Bruno Steppuhn of Zensoft Studios (which developed soft modeling, 3D rendering and multi-player algorithms through various projects) saw the potential of a crowdsourcing game design community and bought Crowded Games in 2007.

“Pond Hockey is new twist on casual games” say Bruno “Its Mario Kart meets no rules hockey, in this funny comedic and chaotic family 4 player hockey game. Its a great game to play as a family or with a bunch of friends.” Pond Hockey is expected to start beta testing next month.

The real jewel is not the game. Its the community game developers. Crowded Games has a community of 50 members with many different backgrounds, from veterans of the game industry to high school students. These members are investing their time into these games for potential royalties down the road. But thats not the most important reason for many members, its the experience and the prestige of creating a new game. Members can win a one year XNA membership each month.

So if you want to get some experience developing games and see your name in the credits, head over to Crowded Games and join the Crowd.

Techcrunch also pointed out that this had been done previously:

Crowdsourced chess matches against well-known figures are nothing new. In 1999, MSN Gaming Zone held “Kasparov versus The World”, a four month long chess match that Kasparov called “the greatest game in the history of chess.” The winner? Kasparov, after 62 moves.

Makes sense, people share their ideas, the crowd votes and discusses the idea and then Starbucks shows them which of the ideas it’s taken and implemented. So far, it seems like the two most popular ideas is a frequent buyer card and free wireless internet at Starbucks. From the looks of it, the Starbucks community managers need to get in there and merge some of the ideas which are the same. How many Starbucks frequent buyer ideas do I need to see?

They did make a comment on the blog for My Starbucks Idea that says members of the Starbucks staff are commenting on the ideas and asking questions to get even more feedback about what customers really want. This type of engagement is great with a community. However, it does require you to actually be responsible and listen to what the users have to say. Stop listening and you’ll start a firestorm that you won’t enjoy.

This idea isn’t all that unique. Dell has been doing it for a few years now under what they call Dell IdeaStorm. More on Dell’s program another time. For now, Starbucks should be commended for reaching out to the avid Starbucks community for feedback. Starbucks almost cult like following is certainly a great brand that will benefit from engaging the crowds.

Parker Brothers the makers of Monopoly (the worlds most played game according to Guinness World Records) have launched a world wide contest to find the top 22 cities for their new game Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition.

Currently Montreal Canada is in the top place putting it at the Broadwalk position. The city that receives the most votes will be placed on the highest rent property.You have until February 28th 2008 to vote for your top 10 cities and you can vote every 72 hours.

The monopoly world edition website it translated in 30 languages. Canada is right now the best represented country with 3 cities in the top 10 followed by china with 2 cities.

Check out www.monopolyworldvote.com to vote for your favourite cities.

Is this an example of a company using the Wisdom of the Crowds to develop a better product or is this an example of clever marketing?