A recent New York Times article focuses on the development of companies who use the Web as a channel for strangers to collaborate and create business strategies. One company, Kluster, strongly believes in making the consumer the decider on what the next products are. Their motto, “Let’s decide on what’s next, instead of buying what’s new,” neatly encompasses the main goal of this new breed of companies. Kluster, a free service to anyone with internet, allows users to create profiles, post business ideas for what they call “projects,” comment on and help develop others’ projects, and endorse others’ ideas they believe in. Members of Kluster are given 1,000 credits called “watts” which they can use to bet on the ideas they support, and can accumulate more watts by giving Kluster more information about themselves (i.e. what company they belong to). Based on how much members collaborate and how successful the ideas they bet on are, members can earn actual cash: if the idea a member supports gets picked up by a company, they can get a cut of the cash bounty offered by the company that endorses the idea. Members also earn more watts this way to bet on future projects.

This is related to the general advantages of social networks. In this example, websites like Kluster enable strangers who otherwise would have no other way of contacting each other to collaborate on potentially lucrative projects. These websites act as bridges across structural holes, connecting individuals and other smaller networks of innovators. As individuals within smaller networks often have more similar ideas, connecting to other smaller networks or individuals outside networks offers more opportunities for original perspectives and ideas - something that is essential for innovators in the business world and elsewhere.