So, part of the lore of Americana is the idea that when our neighbors needed something, we all pitched in and made it happen for them. A community can build and raise a barn in a couple of days, where a farmer alone might have to work for months to get it up.
That wonderful community spirit is the idea behind LoudClick, a service that instantly intrigued me and scared the bejeezus out of me as a Boomer that grew up in a world of one way branding.
But I got over my fear because LoudClick harnesses the passions of web users in the service of site building, content, and commerce. And the risk of brand control is mitigated by an approval process.
It works like this: they offer a free platform that you join. You build the beginning of your site, and invite other LoudClick users to help improve your site by adding content, features etc. Your committed users submit their ideas, you review them, and then consent to have your content supplemented by those passion players.
While the idea of adding content to a site is old hat -- see FaceBook, MySpace, and and and, the difference that LoudClick offers is for members to create richer, more dynamic experiences quickly and easily. And you can have it on your site rather than a social net.
Check them out
Here's their one minute pitch form TechCrunch.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
This is an incredible post. As the co-founder and CEO of the company, I am humbled by how elegantly you explained LoudClick (I wish I had explained it this well). Keep up the great work and thank you for your review.
ReplyDeleteI have provided a few examples of "barn raising" websites in action for your readers.
http://www.usacupplayers.com
http://benazirbhutto.loudclick.net
http://heathledger.loudclick.net
http://BarackObama.loudclick.net
http://JohnMcCain.loudclick.net
Alex Huff
CEO
LoudClick.net
alex (at) loudclick (dot) net
While not the prettiest example Alex sent, I think The Bhutto one really gets at the spirit of this.
ReplyDeleteThat and the Heath Ledger one. Politics is always tough for participatory anything because so many of the visitors will be snarkmeisters. In politics there will be as many crossburners in the barnyard as barnraisers.
But this really is a great idea, people, and I am sure that their model will grow to cover a huge range of content types.
How cool would it be, for example, for a 2.0 firm to have a corporate site built entirely by users? And how nice would it be to have a truly dynamic site? I visited a favorite Web 2.0 property and found that the latest press release they had up was for February 2007. Ouch!