Update: Mathew Ingram has a post with some updated information about the Cambrian House situation after speaking with Cambrian House CEO Michael Sikorsky.
Boy oh boy, it wasn’t that long ago that Cambrian House was the talk of the town or, at least, the talk of everyone into crowdsourcing – the idea that new products could be developed by tapping the expertise of the people. This is clearly evident by Cambrian House’s home page, which proclaims itself to be the “Home of Crowdsourcing”
In theory, it sounded like a great idea but in practice, it apparently didn’t work very well. In what is described as a fire sale, TechCrunch is reporting that Cambrian House’s IP, assets and Web site will be sold to Spencer Trask for far less than the $7.75-million that was invested in the Calgary-based company.
Cambrian House’s demise is a shame because it had such promise and captured the imagination of a lot of people who wanted to believe that a different kind of model could be implemented to find and develop new ideas. Led by the personable CEO Mike Sikorsky, Cambrian House was regularly in the news as Sikorsky spread the news about how well crowdsourcing could work.
In many regards, Sikorsky was the Pied Piper of crowdsourcing, leading the charge of a concept shoved into the spotlight by Wired Magazine’s Jeff Howe.
As TechCrunch suggests, Cambrian House may have been the victim of bad execution/management and/or bets that didn’t pan out. Whatever the cause, Cambrian House’s demise will likely be fertile fodder for anyone who thought crowdsourcing was a crock as opposed to a cracker of an idea.
More: ReadWriteWeb has a post looking at the players within the crowdsourcing landscape.
Technorati Tags: Crowdsourcing
3 Comments
It’s a shame as it did have some great promise – though I may believe it may have been a victim of timing. I wouldn’t be surprised if this model is reborn in the near future with some new angle and has much success.
I used Cambrian House extensively for awhile. It’s a great place to try out ideas, get feedback (good and bad) and improve upon your idea and your sales pitch. However, ultimately it takes a lot more than that to turn a good idea into a viable business.
They need a better way of separating the wheat from the chaff. The “wisdom of the crowds” doesn’t always pick the winners (i.e. think lowest common denominator) and the vast majority of people with good ideas don’t have the wherewithal to taking it beyond the idea stage.
Crowd sourcing is still a viable concept and it’s quite possible a lot of ideas that were tried out on Cambrian house eventually found there way to market due to the tenacity of the individual.
[…] Sources inside Cambrian House have denied that the company has been sold and point to a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/technology/03ecom.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) , about the company that points out the opposites[…]
6 Trackbacks
[...] much for the wisdom of crowds. Techcrunch (and Mark Evans) are reporting that Calgary crowdsourcing up-start Cambrian House days are numbered. Apparently VC [...]
[...] – assets being sold in a garage sale for a fraction of what investors put in. TechCrunch and Mark Evans speculate the House collapsed due to poor [...]
[...] House gets the axe So much for the wisdom of crowds. Techcrunch (and Mark Evans) are reporting that Calgary crowdsourcing up-start Cambrian House is headed for the deadpool. [...]
[...] Cambrian House (review), a website which allowed ideas to be crowdsourced (many people work together) into products, has ‘failed’. They are selling their assets to another venture film for much less than what was invested in it. As their CEO said ‘our model failed’. I am not going into this but you can read all about it here, here and here! [...]
[...] So Much for Crowdsourcing [...]
[...] So Much for Crowdsourcing [...]