The Crowd Starts to Expose

Ok ok ok, so I have received many questions about what the heck we are really doing here at The Crowd. Is it a blog? Is it an application? Is it going to be fun? Is it for me to use? When will it come? Will I like it?

Well, I am glad that the mystery is working…our goal is to build up the mystique behind it. Why? Because that is what stealth mode companies do. This is done to drive some hype around the idea so that when it becomes publicly available, everyone rushes to use it.

This blog is really meant to provide insight into the way we see the world. Although our mission is simple, the foundation is abstract. The concept that we base our whole vision on is that the collective wisdom of many is more intelligent than a smart few. If you were to take a room of 1000 people and combine that room with a three- foot high by one-foot wide jar of jellybeans and ask everyone in the room to guess the number of jelly beans in the jar, the mean of those guesses would be very precise, give or take a few.

Our mission is to “harness the collective wisdom of the world and make is accessible to everyone”. Sounds ambitious, but we are confident that we have figured it out. The key to The Crowd is that it is built by the people for the people and we are simply facilitators. This means that we are building consumer applications that will enable you, the consumer, to contribute and access this wisdom. The Crowd will be accessible in the places where you spend most of your time online; The Crowd will be within the "crowds".

Is this as revolutionary as the Wright Brother’s invention of a flying vehicle? Arguably not. Could we have figured out for the Wright Brothers if there was a market for such a vehicle? Absolutely!

I realize that I have not answered all the questions again, but that is the goal: create some mystery and hype around the product so that at launch people rush to use it. The Crowd’s public launch is at the end of April so everyone will soon know what exactly is going on. Some time before that we will invite a few to check it out first to ensure that we have built something that is mostly bug free. If you are interested in an early peek – become a follower of this blog. Either way, keep reading because we have SO much more to talk about!

(Thanks to my editor Julia - you're the best!)