Nobody is quite sure what to call it, but lots of people are interested in the way the internet makes it possible for people to organise themselves according to their preferences and habits into tiny niches, access to which can then be bought and sold.
A good example is Threadless, an online T-shirt firm based in Chicago. It sees itself as a community in which members can upload T-shirt art, vote for the most promising designs and order them.. The company has about half a million registered users and recieves 600 submissions for new T-shirts a week. Each week’s winning design wins a $2,000 prize, and several thousand people end up ordering it. As the community grows, so the size of the prize, which initially started at $50, will continue to grow too. The firm is considering rewarding the thousands of members who vote each week as well, because they provide valuable insights into market trends that help the company with research and planning. This model could also work in any industry. I am convinced that you could use it for designing cars,…
crowdsourcing is certainly proving to be a disruptive force in the graphic design industry, as well. If you look at sites like Crowdspring.com or 99designs.com, you will clearly see that there is a marketplace for crowdsourced design.
By: Crowdish on June 13, 2008
at 4:01 pm
[...] In the article Don Tapscott explains Wall Street’s current problems and how Wikinomics can help. Mrs. Carine Moitier’s blog highlights the Chicago T-shirt Firm Threadless as a good example of [...]
By: Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Wikinomics in the Blogosphere on June 15, 2008
at 10:21 pm