More retailers testing the 'wisdom of crowds'

San Francisco Chronicle: Companies like Threadless, a T-shirt company in Chicago, and Ryz, an athletic shoe company in Portland, Ore., are making it possible for consumers to design shirts and shoes. Consumers then vote for their favorites, and those are the products these companies sell over the Internet. Dell Computer recently responded to commentators on a company forum called IdeaStorm and once again started loading the Linux operating system on some PCs. This summer, consumers were even voting at DEWmocracy.com to decide which new flavor of Mountain Dew will land on store shelves permanently.

In business speak, the concept is called "crowdsourcing." It is retail democracy, a focus group on a grand scale.

Click to continue