Nostromo sees world travelers whizzing back and forth across less-than-completely-porous borders, and wants to put their extra carrying capacity to use! His winning idea, Shipping by Crowdsourcing Travellers is all about coordinating such a service.
Nostromo currently doesn’t have the resources to push this idea forward as a project, so if you interested in coordinating development, give him a shout!
Lets Ch members get their feet wet in managing a web business in an easy way. I think it also fosters a more active community.
An extremely easy mechanism by which simple sites could be launched, which would eliminate the need for any development skills when rolling out a dynamic website.
A program which tells me, within a defined time period, the people that have “contacted me”, the number of times a “contact” was made, the number of times I have responded, and the average amount of time elapsed before I have responded.
The discussion on this idea quickly centered around the technical aspect of monitoring various forms of communication. Blue has some Blackberry specific thoughts on this in this week’s video blog below.
TED Conference this year includes the launch of Kluster, a site which uses a vocabulary of Amps, Watts and Sparks to articulate various aspects of project crowdsourcing.
On one hand, finding the ideal mechanisms by which Wisdom of Crowds and Participation of Crowds can be leveraged is something more significant than any one business venture. By redefining the boundaries between “work” and “play”, and allowing everyone to explore their full creative potential, crowdsourcing (as enabled by Web 2.0 technologies) makes all of our lives richer. (Except for Andrew Keen.)
So it was with great trepidation we decided to sabotage the entire TED conference in an attempt to derail Kluster.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t counted on Robin Williams being present. Is there ANYTHING that man can’t do? (Aside from stop growing hair?)
In this week’s video, we talk about Kluster and alternate approaches to crowdsourcing ideas! Gluzman speaks at length about Jeff Howe on Crowdfunding, Microsoft’s bad month and his own conspiracy theories involving banks! We take a Skype call from Nostromo! And, as usual, Blue is taken out of context via the magic of video editing!
The full title of the idea is “Time Delayed Text Messaging Service” and all that’s missing is “for your mobile phone” from the end! (Hint: That is a long title.)
This entirely practical idea (submitted by PropertyGeek) makes sending SMS during the wee-hours of the morning socially acceptable, since the message can now be slated to arrive at a more reasonable hour.
SMS messages to yourself can be handy reminders. An SMS to get you up in the morning. An SMS reminds you to take out the trash. What was that crazy important thing you shouldn’t forget?!? Delayed SMS to the rescue… Pick junior up from daycare!
I can see a range of broader applications for this, from automatic entry into text competitions to DELIBERATELY sending messages to ‘friends’ at inappropriate times.
It definitely has its uses. For instance, if my buddy is sleeping and I want to send him a wakeup SMS (or send one to myself) I can set it to 8am my buddies time to wake him up.
Or (this is the dark-side talking) if you want to send a message to someone to prove you were SMSing at a certain time to “cover yourself” you can use the delay as an alibi (I am leaving this idea intentionally vague).
This week neither one of us would give up our favorite idea, and so we are forced to share: Road Rage Robo by alli.
For drivers who are mad, sad, happy, bored, in need of a friend or a boost the Road Rage Robo is a robot driving companion that entertains you. Unlike your car stereo, Road Rage Robo provides customized entertainment to keep a smile on your face while driving.
While some may worry it is just another distraction drivers need to screen out so that they avoid plowing into pedestrians or hurling over cliffs… is it really any worse than your nagging spouse? And if it can truly calm you down when you’re frustrated, it might just prevent an accident!
When HD DVD was announced… he was hesitant. All the money he’d spend on video upgrades could have fed a nation of skinny people. But once in the showroom, exposed to 1080p playback… he couldn’t help himself. It was HD DVD all the way.
He won’t be around any more. He died… of a broken heart.
The more connections to a bubble, the bigger it gets. Users can also rate the relevance of the thought bubble to the overall idea, which will, in effect, change it’s size as well.
This will be both a stand-alone application and web application. With increased support for Flash on mobile devices, it should see use as a cell phone application as well.
Revenue Streams:
Stand-alone adds (every so many times of opening the desktop version a video advertisement will be displayed)
Web ads
Widget ads (will interchange with quotes)
Cell ads (certain number of seconds after splash screen)
DrV is a Flash developer, but is looking for extra Flash muscle, in addition to someone to help build the back-end. If you’re interested in helping out, give DrV a shout.
Laura and Bob: CH2 Developers
When Todd left for a 2 month vacation in Thailand, Cambrian House was presented with a choice: we could panic and run screaming into the streets knowing that it was just a matter of time before a technical glitch drove all our websites into the ground. Or… we could hire new talent.
In addition to supporting CH2, Bob is doing general I.T. support for our websites. So if everything goes smoothly, he’s kinda ignored. But if anything goes wrong, we just yell out “Bob!” and make whiny noises. If we’re lucky, our very own mistakes can sometimes be blamed on him… Bob, glad to have you on the team!
Laura is fixing CH2 bugs, and will be helping implement a new idea intake process next week.
She works extremely fast, and I find myself needing to occasionally impede her progress. By say, inviting her to participate in this week’s IdeaWarz video… lest her impressive skills turn her to “the dark side” (join the CH3 team). Welcome Laura, and… would you mind signing this CH2-exclusivity contract?
Hey, here’s a joke for you!
How many CH3 developers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
“You can’t blog the answer to that.”
Jerks.
Gord Complains about 1 Line Idea Submissions
For the most part, Blue looks on calmly while I complain about ideas which were submitted with no research whatsoever. Oh sure Blue, I’m the bad cop.
Some guy drops a 1 line idea pitch into our pipeline, and all you can say is “its pretty clear to me“.
What are all those text boxes for on our idea submission page? Pretty decoration!?!
Americans can afford to ignore Canada because… well what are we going to do? Invade USA? While they’re busy in Iraq? When they least expect it?!? No… probably not.
While Jon Stewart of The Daily Show maintains his show is about comedy (not politics), it shares the same attitude of bloggers and news aggregation sites (like DIGG and Reddit)… it is meta news, filtering and putting the mainstream media in some sort of useful context. Because something is clearly broken when the US news coverage of the 2008 election fails to (intentionally) entertain.
C’mon people! Leader of the free world and all that! Candidates who are all over the map! There’s enough conviction, animosity and crazy on display that a sitcom writer hammering at a keyboard for all eternity would never produce a transcript as engaging as one of the primary debates!
(This is of course due to the sitcom writer’s insistence on repeating the same basic plot devices, and simply changing the locations and character names. It is quite possible a monkey would produce a matching transcript due to the monkey’s superior internal random keystroke generator.)
So what does work? Well to follow The Daily Show’s example, adding educational value to a piece of entertainment is perhaps more likely to succeed than trying to “make learning fun.”
And what could be more fun than Rock Band? What if Rock Band could be modified so that while you’re performing Ballroom Blitz, you’re simultaneously becoming a better informed citizen!?! While playing the drums you learned about the various political candidates positions on the issues. And both bass and guitar informed you about their voting records?
That is not just impossible… that’s stupid.
Which is why Micco proposes a simple and fun quiz instead. Present the player with a political quote. The player guesses who said it. Guess right, get a point. Guess wrong, and the website tells you who really said it.
“But that’s impossible!” you say, “No one could ever build a site so complicated! It would take a whole team of software developers months to ever write up the design documents!”
Au contraire! Micco wrote “Can They Lead” himself, and hosted it at CanTheyLead.com. Its sitting there right now. Waiting for you to play, and waiting for you to add more political quotes to its database! (Its called crowdsourcing, if you’re both new to this blog, and new to the internet.)
…a game that teaches voters about candidate positions. Unlike candidate websites and news coverage Can They Lead? is a fun way to compare candidates.
Micco considers this a “limited time” idea, since it will become much less pertinent after November.
I think voter ignorance and the way we let the media manipulate opinion is a huge problem, and education is the answer. I don’t think a quiz game of sound bites is the best form of education, but it might engage people who aren’t willing to make an effort to get their information any other way. A lot of people become predisposed to a candidate without knowing much about them, and a game that makes you try to assign quotes/positions to people could be a good way to confront misconceptions and preconceived notions.
If you’d like to help Micco out, consider submitting a few of your favorite quotes to Can They Lead? And while it is certainly functional at the moment, I think there’s no limit to the entertaining permutations that can be wrapped around this concept. My ideal interface would be a multi-player Adobe Flash one, similar to how You Don’t Know Jack was presented on the PC in 1995.
Nice work Micco, and here’s hoping people find your site as practical and fun as I do!
blog widget that allows you to monetize traffic by selling MP3 files of songs targeted to your blog’s demographics.
Proposing a mashup of 2 services, “Amazon Affiliate Program” and “MyBlogLog API”, TheCougar wants to do for MP3 sales what AdSense has done for everything else.
MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) drinking game website. Make Flash versions of Beer Pong, Flip Cup, Quarters, Etc. People log in and play against each other to earn points.
As TMentink has repeatedly pointed out, alcohol consumption is not mandatory. It is the familiarity of the games, and the social aspect of the competition which is significant.
Remember ladies and gentlemen: If you are gong to drink at the computer, delete your eBay bookmark first!
Oh No You Didn’t!
Oh yes we did! Recognizing under-achievement like there’s no tomorrow, we give mad props to those who aren’t afraid to share all of their ideas!
Brenden mentioned maybe we should get out more… that the IdeaWarz videos would benefit from a change of scenery. We’ve got your change of scenery right hereBrenden!
I love kicking back on Sundays to reflect upon the week that passed.
Note, however, this isn’t a typical Sunday for two reasons:
1) I had an incredibly awesome week… Not to say most weeks aren’t awesome, but a lot happened in the world of crowdsourcing and my brain’s been filled with new ideas.
And,
2) Today is the Super Bowl Sunday. It’s my duty to sit on the couch and watch men run amuck in tight spandex.
So before I hop in the car to drive to suburbs (ugg) for traditional Super Bowl BBQ festivities, I thought I would share some interesting crowdsourcing-related links from this week:
1) Crowdsourcing a better Gmail.
Gina (Lifehacker) presented at Web Directions North in Vancouver this week about the Better Gmail firefox extension and community who helped created it. Now, I might argue this is more OpenSource than Crowdsourcing - but the story is cool and so are the slides. After all, who doesn’t want a better Gmail?
2) CoverSourcing Part Duex.
The design duo at Cambrian House submitted some book cover designs for the crowd’s consideration to Random House UK’s CoverSourcing competition. The winning design will grace the cover of Jeff Howe’s upcoming book: Crowdsourcing - How the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business.
See their designs here, find and vote for them here, and submit your own here.
Fact is, some people hate the crowdsourcing model, others don’t understand it quite yet, and some think it’s truly the future of business (ie: making your company’s walls more porous so thoughts and insights from the masses can flow and filter through your business). Check out a great overview of the panel here.
For anyone set to take the stage at a conference in the near future, read this excellent post from Jeremiah Owyang about how to successfully moderate a panel.
4) The TwitterBowl - Rate today’s Super Bowl ads using Twitter
Another thumbs up to Jeremiah for this community initiative to rate super bowl ads. Sign up and put on your opinionated hat.
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Nostromo sees world travelers whizzing back and forth across less-than-completely-porous borders, and wants to put their extra carrying capacity to use! His winning idea, Shipping by Crowdsourcing Travellers is all about coordinating such a service.
DTINGG says:
Summertime says:
Micco says:
From One, Comes Many by Motiggidy
Ping Manager by Edavidove 
TED Conference this year includes the launch of Kluster, a site which uses a vocabulary of Amps, Watts and Sparks to articulate various aspects of project crowdsourcing.
