out of 5 stars by
Robyn Valenzuela
IdeaScale is an application that takes the theories behind crowdsourcing and brainstorming and creates a tool that companies can easily integrate into their website. This makes feedback and the generation of new ideas from a company's base that much more accessible. The IdeaScale process starts with users submitting their ideas. These ideas are published publicly and other users can comment on them. IdeaScale also makes it easy for other users to vote on the ideas that they like. From there, IdeaScale makes it so that the best ideas "bubble up" to the surface and become the most visible to the company. Companies can use this service to get an honest and accurate idea of what their customers really think and new product features that become the most popular are most likely the ones a company can adopt and ultimately make the most profit from. Additional selling points of the IdeaScale product include that they offer a 99.99% uptime, personal account managers and they open up their software so that companies can completely customize their IdeaScale to fit their needs.
IdeaScale was created by Survey Analytics, a web applications company, back in 2003. They also develop a large range of other pieces of software, including web polls, email marketing and feedback-gathering software. IdeaScale has a number of important customers, including ING Direct Avid, Xerox, SAP and Rosetta Stone. IdeaScale is based out of Seattle, Washington and is considered one of the Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies in Washington state. Additionally in 2008 when President Obama launched his open government initiative, IdeaScale was chosen to provide citizen feedback for 23 federal agencies as part of this.
IdeaScale takes feedback, brainstorming and crowdsourcing to a whole new level. Some advanced features that this application has to offer include its advanced voting mechanism which spotlights the most popular ideas and does away with the outliers. This offers an effective way for businesses to sort through the large amount of feedback that it receives and focus on the most commonly shared opinions. IdeaScale also includes a "track this idea" function which is a great way to keep people involved and interested in ideas and keep them engaged in the IdeaScale community.
IdeaScale is well designed and simple to use. Companies can integrate the IdeaScale features into their site without having to worry about their visitors being confused about how to use the feature or that the IdeaScale iteams are distracting from their site's content. IdeaScale makes it easy for companies to customize their IdeaScale application, its tabs and offer incentives to their base for pitching in their ideas and participating in the community. Additionally, IdeaScale offers a iPhone app and Facebook community, so all-in-all IdeaScale has made their product accessible, easy to use and quick to customize so companies can make it all their own.
Users can sign up for IdeaScale pretty easily. IdeaScale offers a free version of its product for folks who are looking to take a peak at what they have to offer and how the product works. To sign up for the free version users will just need to provide their email address, a password, input a random text to prove they are not a robot and accept IdeaScale's standard terms & conditions. From there, users can view the basic IdeaScale interface, setup their own community, and eventually upgrade their plan to a paid version that offers more features.
IdeaScale offers a number of pricing plans with a varying number of features. Plans start at $15/ month for their Lite version. This plan includes unlimited tags, the capability to upload a photo and access to email account support. IdeaScale's plans then jump to $99/ month for their Monthly plan which includes unlimited campaigns, file attachments and up to five administrator logins. IdeaScale touts that its most popular plan is their Annual plan which costs $2,500/ year. This plan includes private communities, custom CSS styling and Single Sign-On. Finally, there are Enterprise plans available, their pricing is unpublished and these plans offer service-level agreements of 99% uptime, a dedicated account manager and full API access.
IdeaScale is a viable service for companies who develop a product and who have a large customer base. These companies would benefit from IdeaScale since they could solicit customer feedback in a professional, customer-friendly and efficient manner. IdeaScale's ability to have the most popular ideas "bubble up to the surface" makes it a time-saver for companies who are interested in their customers' feedback or who are looking for the next round of enhancements or product lines. IdeaScale is surely cheaper than dedicated Research & Development teams or Customer Service departments and it could possibly provide better results than those internal departments could, since IdeaScale truly represents the voice of the public.
Iphone app
English
Twitter followers:
2,886
