I’m glad you brought up Len’s point about Apple because I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. From what we’ve heard of the Steve Jobs of the past was “I predict the market and produce it. It doesn’t really matter what consumers think”. Apple has been successful with this sometimes, but they also have had miserable failures (Newton, Lisa). I’m no expert on Apple, but I think they are considering the consumer more, and the SDK kit is a pretty good example of bringing the consumer into the product creation process.

In terms of a SWOT analysis of co-creation, Jted and I touched on it briefly in the second part of the article, but we could in the future dig into it deeper. Good idea and definitely something we should think about.

I hoped I answered some of your questions.

Johnathan

So…
Are we gone developped Co-owned consumer products or democratic brands, or “grand Leader brands” will keep up producing according to people choices, like some “King”brands mastering people votes and expressions?

Are we gone launch products the same way music industry promote music on myspace? or some very few Graphics through Threadless or others Crowdspring, 99designs, etc…?

Did Some of you Already experiment or participate to some of those co-creation platforms as an average idea-maker, or designer in order to analyse and overview the social behavior involved in such social communities & understand the “perceived” real benefit users got out of it?

I still read just one side point of view from this great insight, but what about the whole SWOT analysis of co-creation?
Sometimes, don’t we call it as well speculative works based on some ideas contests based just on copyrights free rules and reputation votes systems?

I think that the web, competitive pressure, consumer choice and the advancement of tech in general all had a part in opening up co-creation to the “mass consumer”. I say “mass consumer” because even 200 years ago, if a consumer had enough $, and the manufacturer had enough time, they could co-create a product together, but it would be a slow and costly process. Today, a lot of those barriers have been eliminated and have been the driving force in reducing the gap between manufacturers and consumers. For now, I don’t think “choice paralysis” will be affected that much, but in the future state with co-ownership it would definitely have implications.

“Designed by J. Bonnell and J. Theodor, made and quality checked by XYZ.”

What if you the fans of either to compare? Would you get lively niche discussions and proposals for next-generation products? Heaps of that, I hope.