http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jogQT7ijlA8

Quirky has recently surfaced and is using the medium of crowdsourcing to make reality out of product ideas submitted by people just like you and me. The process is this: you’re seized by some potentially brilliant and innovative idea; you reflexively reach for your laptop as so many of us are wont to do; you sign in to Quirky and submit your idea.

If you have enough faith in both yourself and the assistance of Quirky to develop your idea, you shouldn't be deterred by the relatively low admission fee of $10. Instead, consider the rationale behind the fee, according to Quirky: “Your $10 investment takes your idea from a tiny sketch to a professionally manufactured product, on shelves worldwide, earning you a heckuva lot more. Worst case? That 10 bucks get you detailed analytics on who liked and didn't like your idea, as well as extensive community feedback. You then have the option to resubmit your idea, or you can use the valuable market research data to make the thing on your own.”

Once your idea has been submitted, it must brave the storm of opinions, votes, and ratings of Quirky’s online community - crowdsourcing in its purest form. If your idea happens to make it as one of the top five chosen ideas, it will be passed on to the staff community of the website. At this point, your concept will be plunged into a thorough evaluation for design potential, marketing potential, and viability. The concept with the highest score out of 100 will transform from the airy sparkles of the imagination to an actual tactile conception! A concise description consisting of 140 words and an image or two to sweeten your pitch will give you an edge. Online, Quirky highlights other crucial details to be considered before posting.

As a member of the Quirky community, you are certainly not obliged to submit ideas; instead, you can enjoy having the ability to vote, trash, or praise ideas submitted by other members and be more than entertained, if not inspired, by some of the charming product ideas frequently pitched. The website offers an experience that is just as preoccupying as it is productive. Quirky makes it more than coherent to understand the importance of community feedback by means of your active participation.

No stellar product goes without monetary compensation, and payment technicalities for your product are concretely explained in a 60-second video titled “Quirky Influence”. The more units they sell of your product, the more exponential your profits become. Quirky is affiliated with retail partners from Bed, Bath, & Beyond to Barnes & Noble, plus everything between, so the prospect of selling 35,000 units is not outside the realm of possibility. The notion of a company taking care of the process of finalizing engineering, sourcing materials, securing factories, creating packaging, and acknowledging the other finer technicalities that go into manufacturing is a pretty sweet deal. This is perhaps “The easiest way to bring your ideas to life,” as Quirky states, and it’s now downloadable as an iPhone app, so let the invention Olympics begin.