Though marketplace services such as Guru and eLance have ably served freelancers and web workers for some time, LimeExchange seeks to differentiate itself from its predecessors by moving service marketplaces beyond simple matchmaking of buyers and sellers, to eBay-like reputation and feedback metrics that help users understand the prior reputability of their collaborators.

Like other marketplaces, LimeExchange takes a cut of a successfully completed project - quoted up frong at a hefty 8%. One curious feature enables buyers to 'trial' sellers with a demonstration of their abilities through a pilot project - the marketplace equivalent of paid pitching?

In other areas, LimeExchange is aping the Q&A and business networking features of LinkedIn, raising questions as to why business networks such as LinkedIn aren't already offering this?

LimeExchange is part of a new wave of service marketplaces that're all exploring post-Guru/eLance and post-LinkedIn opportunities that all seek to exploit advances in social networks and social media.

Marketplaces such as Kluster and Cambrian House, seek to aggregate sellers into startup opportunities with shared equity in new ventures, with varying degrees of success. Interestingly, marketplaces like New Zealand's forthcoming Creative Federation and the UK's bmedi@ operate tendering models which aggregate members around specific projects or tendering opportunities; bmedi@ in particular is using its position to help freelancers 'club together' to tackle larger tenders and promote its region's members.

LimeExchange is currently orienting its services around design, development, media production, blogging, networking, consulting, writing, legal work, accounting, market research and administration - all areas which appear to correlate closely with our audience here.

I'm curious to hear from readers of Web Worker Daily on their experiences with such services...

• do they contribute a steady pipeline of work for you?
• what proportion of your works originates from such marketplaces?
• do you find most transactions and collaborations to be reputable?
• are the fees reasonable?
• what is lacking?

If we get enough interest responses, I'll aim to put together a follow up post summarising people's views.

Black smokers adalah istilah untuk gelembung-gelembung gas hidrotermal yang keluar dari rekahan di dasar lautan. Gas tersebut muncul dari patahan yang menganga. Salah satu kluster baru ditemukan di daerah Mid-Atlantic Ridge, antara Greenland dan Norwegia. Kluster tersebut tercatat sebagai black smokers paling utara. Black smokers lain yang terdekat berjarak sekitar 200 kilometer.

Semburan gas panas di dasar lautan itu berhasil direkam kapal selam mini yang dapat dikendalikan dari jarak jauh. Tinggi semburan gas mencapai 12 meter sebelum menyatu dengan air laut yang sangat dingin. Para peneliti menyebutnya Istana Loki karena bentuknya mirip istana fantasi. Nama Loki diambil dari nama dewa penipu dalam mitos Norwegia.

Mineral-mineral sulfida yang terlarut saat cairan panas bertemu air dingin di dasar laut selama bertahun-tahun terkumpul di sekitar lubang. Volume endapan di sekitarnya mencapai ketinggian 90 meter dan menyebar dengan diameter 315 meter.

"Akumulasi di sekitar lubang terbaru ini adalah deposit terbesar di dasar laut," ujar Marvin Lilley, pakar kelautan dari Universitas Washington. Ia memperkirakan, lubang tersebut telah aktif sejak ribuan tahun.

Mineral-mineral di sekitar "cerobong asap" tersebut membentuk lingkungan yang hangat dan kaya mineral dibandingkan dengan sekitarnya. Pengamatan awal bahkan menunjukkan ekosistem di kawasan sekitarnya sangat beragam dan terdapat kehidupan mikroorganisme meski tidak terjangkau sinar matahari. Sejumlah ilmuwan berpendapat, lingkungan seperti inilah kemungkinan bibit kehidupan di Bumi pada masa lalu.
Sumber : Jardiknas

I love the idea of these sites, imagining myself becoming fantastically rich by participating in the problem solving during my lunch hour. So I am still awaiting my first check - well you try coming up with a name for Baby Memorabilia in 10 mins whilst simultaneously shoveling in your two-hour late Bento lunchbox :[

Anyway the puzzle for me, other than finding the time for participation, is how much real innovation is derived from these ventures. Sure, this is a great way to generate a hat-full of answers in a small space of time, and for simple[ish] problems I am sure this works a treat. However as far as I know, no major innovation or break through has been created/solved in this way. Individual moments of brilliance [preceded by eons of hard-work] seem to be the way of paradigm-shifts in design and creative thought. Plus, if you really did come up with a great solution wouldn't you want to keep it for yourself?

Their ought to be a web app out there somewhere that charts the success/failures of these ventures. Then we could tell if the innovation is truly flowing. I wonder if I can get some crowdsourcing help to build it?

Evolution genom naturligt urval handlar inte om slump. Det handlar om att försöka, att pröva sig fram, utvärdera och förbättra. Vi har ofta svårt att förstå naturens evolution eftersom det handlar om så otroligt långsamma processer av vi inte kan uppfatta dem med våra sinnen och ibland är det även svårt att skapa en rationell förståelse med så långsamma processer inblandade. En människas livstid är så oändligt kort i förhållande till de processer som skapar organismer genom naturligt urval.

Evolution kan vara ett känsligt ämne när man talar om humanvetenskapliga processer eftersom tanken ofta släpas iväg till elitismens skamvrå. Egentligen är det så att evolution är den vackraste tanken som skapats och förklarar mycket av det som händer när en person, eller ett samhälle, utvecklas.

En person skapas inte under några fjuttiga decenniers tidspann utan utvecklas från naturens eller människans begynnelse till dess slut. Den individ som är jag har ett enormt perspektiv framåt och bakåt i tiden. Men det är nu, under min livstid, som den största ackumulationen sker. Tidigare har min person endast existerat i form av spår som söker sig fram mot det som jag är nu, och efter jag är borta som individ kommer min person återigen att förvandlas till spår som söker sig fram i nya klusterbildningar. Det är nog det jag är, ett materiellt-semiotiskt tidskluster som skapats genom miljontals år av naturliga processer. Kan tanken om livet bli mer underbar än så?

From their website:

"Knewsroom™ is a community-directed news publication where not only do you have a voice—you get paid to use it. “The Knews” gets published every morning, featuring the previous day’s top stories in Politics, Business, Technology, Design, Sports, and Entertainment.

What makes it in? The community decides.

The best part? 20% of every dollar we generate in advertising gets split with the people who make the Knews happen: writers, readers, evangelists...anyone looking to turn extra brainwidth into extra cash."

If you want to learn more details on how it actually works go here.

I like the idea of Knewsroom but the results are pretty much what you'll find on the frontpages of most of the major news sites.  Today has stories on Clinton's toothless win in WV, Edwards support of Obama, death tolls from China and the Celtics win again at home.  Not exactly breaking any new ground here.

I still am not sure what kind of service they provide, but I like the idea and it makes sense completely with how we are getting our news and information. My info is pushed to me via Google Reader. The "news" I find, I pass on to my friends and we create our own version of NBC Nightly news. But will this catch on? Will people take the bait and actually try creating some knews? I'm definitely going to keep a close eye on this.

The site itself is fun to browse and seems to have a fair amount of community involvement.  Now comes word (via Mashable) that Kluster is launching a sort of newsletter...

"The site is a bit of a diversion from the typical online news site which is updated 24×7. Rather, Knewsroom will publish once daily, with users deciding on what stories make the cut. It’s sort of like the morning, dead-tree-paper version of The New York Times that your parent’s get, but online. It’s even broken down into 5 different sections (like Politics, Sports, Entertainment, etc.) with 5 stories in each."

In addition to everyone voting on which stories will make the cut, users can submit their own stories, which, if used, will earn them $150.

My big question is whether or not this crowdsourcing approach will actually result in a unique newsletter.  There is certainly no limit of places to get your daily news and, in this case, you have to actually wait for it to be delivered - something that most netizens don't put up with these days.

I'm certainly curious to see what the newsletter looks like but I fear it will just be a rehash of the days news - information I will have already consumed over the course of the day.

it has been a while since my first kimmo pohjonen post. in the meantime i have seen the man twice. and i will go and see him again if i'll have the chance. the first time i was just overwhelmed - the music, the performance - you don't want to miss a thing because it is so exciting. he takes you on a trip from quiet to nostalgic to tribal to out there and back. and when it is over you are not exhausted, but exhilarated and elevated.

and the second time you see him you are more calm - you suddenly become aware of the details, of the connections to different styles of music and its re-contextualizing. suddenly a lot makes sense. again. after all the accordeon is a typical instrument for a lot of different european folklore. a folklore that in many regions tended to become stale, to serve a faux nostalgia of a past that never happened, that is imagined as something actually quite exclusive, pretending to come out of a local identity that can only be defended through ignoring exactly the specific local identity and its history. but maybe i expect to much of folklore? as with a lot of popular music, it seems it just has become a product (and one of the most successfull musical products, commercially). but back to kimmo pohjonen: listening to him using his accordeon, his voice and live sampling is in that sense a revelation: all these elements of european (but not only european) music suddenly make sense again. he infuses them with a musical relevance again which makes you want to go home and actually listen to old musette, polka or (finnish) tango: he enables you to not only enjoy his music and performance, but through his music and performance giving you a new perspective on what accordeon music is, he also gives you a new access beyond "his" music - by him being so extraordinarly musical, he opens your ears to music in general in a new way. yes, he left quite an impression on me.

if that all sounds very complicated: it's not. part of his virtuosity is that it is accessible on several levels. just looking at his live performance as a performance is already an experience. i mean: a big accordeon treated in different ways is already visually rather stunning. he obviously knows why he plays and presents his music in the way he does - it all makes sense. and he wants to seduce you (and he manages that quite easily, judging by the publics reaction), he wants to show you the beauty of music, to take you on a trip. and what makes it especially nice is his rather humble attitude: it's about the music and you taking pleasure in the music. and as a listener you feel at ease: you can listen quietly or you can voice your enthusiasm very vocal - both seems appropriate...

so yes, i obviously recommend urge you to see him live.

in the meantime i propose you have a listen - this time not mister pohjonen on his own (after all he is also involved in several collaborations), but together with samuli kosminen under the name of kluster. and besides being a really good record it was obvious for me that i wanted to post this record already for its cover - hmmm.... yep, i am looking forward to see them once live and just hope that samuli will perform topless. hey - visuals are important!

so - here you get kimmo pohjonen - kluster. for more information, more pics and most important: information on his upcoming live-performances, please visit his website. and now enjoy!

Professional design firms may be asking themselves why they should be happy about something that is allowing amateur designers and freelancers to compete with them on a huge scale. I'll tell you why. Giving everyone a chance allows for greater creativity and diversity on a given project. Now that everyone is competing with each other it raises the standards of the winning design. Now it is not just one or two firms competing for the job and then taking over. When you increase the amount of players, you increase the odds of coming up with a great design.

Companies looking for design work should be super happy about his new process too. Now instead of going out and hiring a design or marketing firm to come up with their branding they can post a competition. It is much, much cheaper, and it also gives them a wider array of designs to chose from. A great example of this is DataPortability's competition for the redesign of their logo (See the designs on Flickr). I know I'll be keeping an eye on how it works out. Let me know what you think about the process.

Every founding team needs individuals that add value in different ways, which means that a team full of idea-makers is a team that goes nowhere. Execution is key. Founders (like myself) are constantly looking for people who bring a skill(s) to the table. Find them at any of these places and start selling yourself!

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There's a note buried in the TED site:

Collaboratively, it was decided that it would be an education board game; the content for it was developed; a name chosen ("OverThere" -- the logo was submitted by a participant online); the rules set; a tagline developed; a full prototype developed (photo). 72 hours, 1200 participants, a board game "of social awareness" collectively invented, developed and prototyped: a pretty awesome piece of work.

User "klusterbot" has some photos up on Flickr that show the game-in-progress.

Where's the finished information? The blog posts? The reviews from participants?

Interestingly, nothing on the Kluster press page.

Note to self: if I send out a huge press release with all the hype machine behind me, announcing a product launch on a certain date and time, make sure my PR staff is goes to the mattresses to make sure that the information gets out to the public. Otherwise I've wasted a lot of PR karma for my next launch.

In the 72 hours of TED, attendees and the community at large are taking an actual product from ideation to concept to prototype.  When the conference opened, kluster began taking suggestions for a new product to be created during the show.  285 suggestions submitted by more than a thousand participants were narrowed down through the iteration of participants, and it was quickly decided that the product that will be created here is a board game that teaches diversity and cultural awareness.

For the last day or so, the details of the product have been determined.  Peter Wadsworth of kluster was kind enough to explain to me how naming, scope, options -- everything down to the smallest details --  is all being architected in a fully collaborative process over the Internet. By breaking the complicated tasks down into manageable parts, encouraging participation through a simple formula of investment/reward, and providing intelligent decision support, kluster helps shepherd a process to completion. 

kluster guru Ben Kaufman tells me that if everything goes as planned, a prototype of the actual product will be ready tomorrow morning. 

This is a powerful example of the power of participation.  At the very least, it's an interesting laboratory for practical collaboration.  Having watched the process unfold, I look forward to holding a copy of the game in my hands tomorrow.

Roger W. Farnsworth

Founder Ben Kaufman, who bankrolled the company in part with money from the sale of his last company Mophie, has organized a gimmick over the course of the TED conference he hopes will prove Kluster's worth. Kaufman intends to let TED attendees -- and users from around the world -- design a completely new product over the course of 72 hours.

*cough* been there, done that. Doing it again in Portland in a few months. I think what this shows is that Andrew Hyde's Startup Weekend model -- get a bunch of smart people in a room, give them a challenge, set them loose -- has legs and strikes the right chord in people.

I'll be really interested to hear what Kluster comes up with. Operationally, I'm interested to hear how you can "launch" a physical product - not a website - in 72 hours. There will be a lot of interesting (yet minor) dissimilarities with Startup Weekend. It will be good to compare and contrast.

Look out for Ben Kauffman - the man driving a new force in rapid prototyping and crowd-sourced innovation. He's hoping to turn this year's TED crowd into an innovation machine as they bid their Watts on product ideas using his Kluster web service.

What I want to know is will Kluster lend itself to rapid protoyping of brands, of delivery channels, of business models? Product development is by all means a necessary activity for companies to remain competitive, but it's not the deepest source of value creation. Revolutionary business models, new services and experiences, and innovative branding ideas hold the keys to unlocking competitive advantage in value creation.

But this one caught my interest not only because it's in the realm of decision making, but because it's more about productivity and collaboration, and less about befriending people.

Besides sounding flaky ("What is our business model? don’t worry we are not like the others… we actually have one, we promise.") they have thought the process through with "phases" (that are deliverables,) "sparks," (solutions and ideas) and "amps" which refine the imperfect sparks. The network has its own currency, measured (or rather awarded) in "watts."

Will Kluster be a lot different from, say, Innocentive, the "open innovation" community? Today is a defining moment, since Kluster is officially launching the company at the TED conference.

Chris Anderson - curator of TED appeared on Charlie Rose this week. See the video here.

Thomas Dolby - musical director of TED has a great blog, and is talking about getting ready for TED.

Tom - talks about the TED Buzz on his TrueTalk Blog.

The CBC has a nice article about TED here.

Conde Nast Portfolio.com - sponsor of TED, is devoting parts of their web site to all things TED.

Kluster - a web based collaboration and decision making platform will be launching at TED. From kluster's site... "kluster is a place to harness the power of community collaboration to get things done. everyone has ideas, we provide the platform to get them out of heads and into the world... where they belong."

NOTE: eman's views has now moved to emansviews.com. I hope you'll stop by. 

Encyclopedia of Life - part E.O.Wilson's TED wish is set to launch during TED. See more about EOL in the video below.

Rickshaw Bagworks - a new company, founded by Mark Dwight the former CEO of Timbuk2, will be launching their bag line at TED. Below is a video of Mark, his Moleskines, and the new bag.

 Russ (roommate) and I sat at my computer tonight trying to amass a list of the rediculous web 2.0 names that make Silicon Valley bleed money into interactive startup funds. Don't get me started on ooVoo.com. I'd rather milk cows.

Kluster launched in the last couple of days. It's one of those sites that makes me want to say "Joe, take a look at this". If I knew a Joe, he would.

Touting a crowdsourcing model, it's a place for collaboration of ideas to become realistic. Ah human capital is attractive to web 2.0. The last great resource of man is going free on the Internet. Where is open source going? Open source health care? Open source child raising? Open source breakfast cereal? Lets hope not because I want to leave my bowl of Cap'n Crunch up to the masterminds.

It'll be interesting to see what Kluster becomes, if it breeds mass lawsuits, and just how they propose to captivate the minds and audiences of people so that they feel like they need it. Last I checked, there was no shortage of ideas in the marketplace.. so I wonder if this is like feeding cactus to a lizard in the desert.

And why didn't they go the web 2.0 extra mile and name it Klustr? Good one guys...

Watt's next?

2008 looks set to be the year of the 'We'. Today, Tech Crunch announced the launch of a new online product called Kluster. Kluster is designed to help companies take advantage of a sea of on-line talent and may have a solution to one of the chief concerns bugging democratization; 'What's in it for me?'. Kluster appears to have an answer to that quandary with a currency system referred to as 'Watts'. Tech Crunch quotes CEO Ben Kaufman

"Our Watt system is like a currency. You get a certain amount of Watts. As you do more things you get more Watts. Instead of voting on ideas, you invest your Watts in concepts you like."

So if this system works, Kaufman's company may well be the first to successfully apply capitalism to what (think 'Open Source') has generally been described as a socialist model. Kluster is due to be Beta tested at the this weeks Ted conference. The conference, which I'm told is quite exclusive, explores 'ideas worth spreading' and it will be very interesting to hear how the concept behind Kaufman's Kluster gets received. Seemingly Kaufman will be talking at the conference so lets hope we can look forward to coverage of those talks on Teds site in the next week or two. In the meantime a quick glance at the comments on the Tech Crunch article are none too encouraging but as Don Tapscott points out on Google talks (_04), every revolution has its fair share of Luddites. (Thanks to Imelda for putting me wide to this story).

 ~

Or at least your music...

and your voice...

and your body...

and your harmonica...

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and your bad mood in the morning...

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Kimmo Pohjonen - Official website

...but I can't accept that your tour goes around the world - with no stop in Sweden!

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