WePc.Com Launches

For the better part of a year, we at FM have been working on an innovative new project with Asus and Intel. Today it launched. WePC.com is an experiment in crowdsourcing an entirely new piece of hardware, and I’m very proud of the work we’ve done together.

Check out my first submission – the LowJackPC. The idea here is to gather the collective intelligence of PC users to help build a smarter, better machine. We’ve integrated all sorts of tools to help create a platform for ideas, including Grafitti, so you can draw it. But I’m terrible at drawing, so for now, my PC doesn’t have any pictures. I should fix that.

Anyway, here’s the release on the program. From it:



Consumers become product designers at WePC.com, a Web site launched today by Intel Corporation and ASUS. WePC.com is where consumers can collaborate with each other and with Intel and ASUS to design innovative new products. The plan is for the two companies to deliver to market what could be the world’s first community-designed PCs.

This site is a very real example informed by a lot of thinking and theory around conversational marketing in the past few years. I remember my first even “aha” moment – nearly four years ago – when I suggested to a major computer manufacturer that perhaps it should consider gathering input from its customers before creating the next rev of its machines. The blank stares were palpable. We’ve come a long, long way since then.