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People's Prizes - a new crowdsourcing idea
I had this idea a long time ago, and apparently there's a stealth start-up beginning to create it.
It is this:
-people who want something to be invented and produced (e.g. a low-cost solar-powered blimp, or artificial meat that's good for the planet) pool resources by asking other people to create a prize around the idea
-so you drop your idea on a prize-making website: "build a personal solar blimp that can stay aloft for days, and that costs less than $10,000";
if, say, 10,000 people are willing to give the intention to contribute $100 each, *after* a team has met the criteria, you have a $1 million prize
-participants would only pay their contribution *after* a team has actually met all the criteria to win the prize; and thus proves that the invention works and solves the problem or the challenge; - this way everybody's happy, and you can join in prizes for great projects without really losing money.
-As a prize maker, you simply give your conditional intention: "if" someone succeeds, I will contribute $100. So you're sure that your money will be well spent, as you only give it when someone has succeeded in realizing the great idea that was proposed by someone and to which you're willing to contribute.
So this is a crowd-sourced way of launching popular prizes. Instead of looking for prize money amongst corporate sponsors, you look for it among the crowd.
It's a bit like the opposite of Kickstarter and similar types of crowdfunding. In Kickstarter, an inventor comes to ask money. In "Peoples Prizes" the community pools cash around an idea and asks inventors to prove what they can come up with.
The stealth start-up that's being created around this idea is funded by Google. I've written to Google to say they've stolen my idea (which dates from 2008 - and I have sources to prove it). But unfortunately they didn't respond.
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Laurens Rademakers 50+
It is well known that Google often searches this kind of sites for new ideas and potential business opportunities.
What's more, one of my architectural reveries which I had posted on that website, was also stolen and actually built in the United Arab Emirates as a huge hotel. The exact same design. I also wrote to the developers (asking for a free night at their hotel!), but they refused...
Anyways, I don't really care, because the ideas people post on that site are often stolen. They're not patented. They simply constitute some informal kind of prior art.
And indeed, it's a compliment to see large organisations steal your idea and actually build or implement it.
Derek Young 30+
Don't you think so? =)
Debra Smith 200+
Laurens Rademakers 50+
But at least Google, in recognition, could have given me a free T-shirt. :-)
Derek Young 30+
Oh well, life is full of bumps, just learn to get over them and life will continue. That is kind of harsh, but it is the only way it is in my mind. Hope it was helpful.