Entrepreneurs Seek Input From Outsiders

(Wall Street Journal) — These days, small businesses are increasingly tapping online communities to save time and money on product development. Some are turning to crowdsourcing sites such as Eyeka, Hypios and Jovoto to quickly generate ideas from freelancers, often through contests, for low fees. Others are using free platforms like Facebook and Twitter, or their own company blogs, to solicit opinions from consumers.  “What the social tools enable is a very low-cost way of interacting with people — and early on in the product-development process,” says Doug Williams, a consumer-product strategy analyst for Forrester Research Inc. The tools also tend to produce better intelligence than traditional outreach devices like surveys and suggestion boxes because those only allow for one-way communication, he adds.

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