TITLE: The Long Tail as Software Designer
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 20, 2006  5:16 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:

Almost every day I am reminded of how the way the world
works is changing all around us.  For example, Philip
Windley writes of the day, coming soon, when
<A HREF="http://www.windley.com/archives/2006/12/giving_away_preloaded_mp3_players.shtml">
   MP3 player are like pens</A>
-- "everywhere, given away, easily abandoned, even disposable".
(I almost wrote "ballpoint pens", but that would betray
my ever more apparent state of being a dinosaur.)

Then I learned about 
<A HREF="http://mydreamapp.com/about/">
   My Dream App</A>,
which lies at the convergence of American Idol, the
web, and the independent software world:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
My Dream App is a grand experiment to see what happens
when you combine the expertise of some of the best
talents in the software and tech world with great ideas
and feedback from everyone else.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Like Idol, My Dream App had open tryouts to get into the
pool of contestants and then judging by a panel of experts
as the apps were winnowed through a series of rounds.
However, My Dream App's panel of experts puts Idol's to
shame!  At the end, the viewing public selected winners
by voting on-line.  At stake was not a recording contract
but a contract to have the idea implemented by a crack
team of Mac developers, with royalties for life.  The
coding team has some great developers, including one of
the guys behind
<A HREF="http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/">
   SubEthaEdit</A>.

<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/people/simon-cowell.jpg"
     ALT="Simon (Cowell) says: thumbs down!"
     ALIGN="left"
     WIDTH="125"></A>

<IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/people/steve-wozniak.jpg"
     ALT="Steve Wozniak"
     ALIGN="right"
     WIDTH="125"></A>

While I'm not all that enamored by most of the apps that
finished at the top of the pile, with perhaps
<A HREF="http://mydreamapp.com/contestants/view/farzadsadjadi/idea/">
   one exception</A>,
I think that this is a great idea.  It exploits the power
of a large number of people to brainstorm ideas and then
allows them to participate in a selection process that is
guided by informed folks who can provide a more focused
perspective.  And the allure of having Woz act as Simon
Cowell must surely have attracted a few people to take
their shot at submitting an idea.  "That's the most
<EM>pathetic</EM> feature I've seen since Bill Atkinson
wanted to
<A HREF="http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Desk_Ornaments.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium">
   prevent users from specifying their own desktop patterns</A>
on the original Mac."

This is a new variation in the space of idea generation
that I
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-22T09_45_54.htm">
   have written about before</A>.
On one end of a continuum is the great solo creator like
Steve Jobs, who seems to have an innate sense of what of
is good; at the other end is Howard Moskowitz, who
produces an insanely large set of possibilities, including
strange ones that we think no one might like, and then lets
people discover what they like.  My Dream App is more in
the Moskowitz vein, but with a twist -- let everyone with
an internet connection build your set of possibilities for
you, and then let the crowd work with informed guides to
winnow the set.  The ubiquity of the web makes possible a
collaborative process that would have been unwieldy at best
in earlier times.

I wonder long it will be before a mainstream producer --
say, an automobile manufacturer -- uses this sort of approach
to design a mainstream product.  Just imagine... the 2009
Long Tail coupe, original idea by a insurance executive in
Hawarden, Iowa, refined by the masses under the watchful
eye of Lee Iacocca.  Many auto manufacturers do worse on
their own.  When harnessed in the right sort of process,
the wisdom of the crowd is a powerful force.
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