Public Contests – what it’s all about

Spring’s come into town – and it brings along some massive changes for jovoto.

@raemin

We’ve opened an office in New York, with the betacup we’re heading towards jovoto’s so far biggest contest  from April 1st and we’re about to open the platform to welcome more community members. This is an exciting step and we are looking forward to the crazy times ahead – but we also want to make sure everybody understands what’s going on. So here’s the deal:

From now on there will be two different contest modes on jovoto: Public Contests and Private Contests.

Public Contests, like the beatcup contest, are open for everyone – you sign in on jovoto, create an account and you can submit an idea and comment on the ideas of others. As well as for all private contests it will be up to the community to decide who is supposed to receive the prize money of public contests. There’s however one thing you can’t do immediately and that’s rating. Only after verifying that you’re a real human being the right to rate will be granted to you. You need to verify your account with a code sent to you via SMS message. This only takes seconds and of course our privacy policy makes sure your data stays safe. This way we also protect the platform from one person setting up multiple or ‘fake’ accounts because each telephone number can only receive one code for one account. Having verified your account you can rate on other’s ideas in public contests – you can, however, not participate, comment or rate in private contests just yet.

Private Contests are open for long term community members and those who have proven their talent and community skills in Public Contests, for example by wining a prize or collecting loads of good karma (even more information on how to collect good karma can be found here).

By offering two contest modes we combine several great opportunities – for the community and for the clients.

Public Contests serve as a huge collector for all kinds of ideas and approaches. The more people participate, the more great ideas are being collected. And thanks to the inspiration and help of the crowd the submitted ideas can be developed and refined. The betacup contest is the perfect example: the development of better and waste-saving alternatives to drinking coffee out of paper cups is a task best solved by a large group of people. It requires the wisdom of the crowd to collect as many good ideas in a range and variety as broad as possible. And by spreading the word about it, the engaged people already make the idea popular and help waste reduction in the future.

@*w*

However, other tasks might require a more targeted handling. Such tasks are better solved by a smaller group of people – a grown community with experience and special expertise. Moreover, some clients don’t want their new corporate identity spread around the internet before they even implemented it themselves. Private Contests offer efficient solutions and the privacy some tasks require.

And just to make this sure: no matter if Public Contest or Private Contests – the rights to the submitted idea remain with the author unless she/he sells it to the client.

So, this is what spring brought for jovoto and the jovoto community. We’re going big – but still keep up the intimacy of a community. We ban the danger of fake accounts and yet open up to new community members. We can host bigger contests with a wider reach whilst at the same time offer the privacy some tasks require.

Thank god it’s springtime!