CrowdSpirit Site Launch
29 Nov
CrowdSpirit: Using Web 2.0 to transform product creation and distribution
Today sees the launch of the first public beta of the CrowdSpirit site, an international venture based in France (Grenoble), which couples the power of crowds and the collaboration of Web 2.0 to reinvent the supply chain and product development cycle.
CrowdSpirit has been created to resolve the problem of popular consumer products taking too long to reach the market place, not always being in tune with the public’s needs and being unduly held up trying to find a route to market. Even The Beatles, JK Rowling and the inventor of the wind up radio all had significant problems setting up a supply chain to get their market leading products in front of an adoring public. It is not in the inventor’s or the public’s interest for it to be so difficult.
CrowdSpirit believes that the general public and not commercial interests are the best advisers on novel product creation and are targeting the field of electronic products to turn their revolutionary manufacturing vision into reality.
CrowdSpirit is harnessing the “power of crowds” to allow inventors and adapters of technology to take their products to market via a collaborative distribution channel which overcomes many of the difficulties that inventors have faced in the past. Furthermore this distribution channel provides opportunities for inventors, developers, distributors and manufacturers to contribute at different stages to enable the supply chain.
This is Crowdsourcing taken to the marketplace and has been hailed by Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com, as “The next wave”. Analysts believe the concept of product creation by companies that dynamically build the supply chain could be set to change the world of business. Sometimes labelled as ‘prosumerism’, Web 2.0 allows it to happen.
Web 2.0 has seen a massive generation of on-line content from blogs and video challenging traditional media companies. With the recent YouTube sale and the rapid movement of TV companies putting content on-line, Web 2.0 has only just begun. The media is, however, just one consumer space. CrowdSpirit is targeting the electronics sector initially and other sectors could follow as the Web 2.0 revolution extends outwards from on-line content through one consumer market after another.
Further Details
Business Model and the team profile
Contact: the team by email on team@crowdspirit.org, or
Tel+[33] 6 86 87 25 49
November 29th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
While I applaud the idea of crowd-sourcing, I find it strange that you choose to give emphasis to the fact that contributors would be paid for their effort (it’s in a large font on the front page, with a big blue arrow), while completely downplaying the fact that you are a for-profit commercial entity (why the .org domain?) and that you are assigning yourself all intellectual property rights of anything discussed in the crowdspirit website (which is buried in a single line mention at the bottom of a webpage, using a faint grey color and a small font).
Are you planning to post a more complete business manifesto, that would clearly outline the goals of the company, and how it plans to compensate its contributors?
November 30th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hello Olivier, thanks for your questions, this is what we’re waiting from the community : to challenge us and to correct our mistake. In that case, we clearly apologize for the 2 sentences that you’re mentioning which clearly bring some confusion. So you will see that those sentences will be updated on the tomorrow website release. Regarding your last statement “Based on your contribution, WE earn money from product sales”, We can tell you that our business model is based on the fact to reward the community. So we can imagine to earn ALL the money, but this is a very short term approach as we will be able to produce only one product ;-). Let’s come back in the coming days on our FAQ that we’re going to publish to make sure that it answers all your questions. Do not hesitate to come back to us if it’s still uncleared.