In what other industries or areas would Threadless’s community-driven product development model work well? And not so well?
The community-driven product development would probably work well in the music industry. It may also work well in art like paintings and photography. I think any industry that is some what artistic would work well with community driven development because people like to create things and people like to find good art. Community driven product development also seems to work well for open source software but one thing that is needed I believe for a community development to work well is a passionate community. Without a passionate community the products created would be poor. Also, community development of applications on facebook and the ipod have worked well at increases Apple’s revenue and gives the community a chance to also make money.
Community based development would not work well in highly specialized businesses were special knowledge is required. Businesses that can’t provide monetary value to the crowd may also be less successful because there is little incentive other then the communities passion for solving the problem.
