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Fellow ID'ers, beware: Dutch website Redesign me is trying to replace us!

How it works: product manufacturers pay RedesignMe to establish "RDM Challenges," through which a new product concept is presented and the site's 1,000 or so active members are asked to react to it.

Beginning with an initial proposed concept, users are free to modify the current design or upload their own ideas, using any combination of comments, sketches, pictures, mood-boards, movies, prototypes or total redesigns.

Ideas generated on the site are then used as input by the manufacturer's R&D team or professional designers, who decide on the final concept. Ultimately, the companies hope, the result will be products that are better aligned with what consumers really want.

RedesignMe founder Maxim Schram explains: "In response to the launch of our website last year, a lot of manufacturers called us to ask if we could help them get input from consumers.

"They wanted to ask the community questions and were willing to pay for it. A couple of months later we did a pilot with Vodafone Group where we asked our members to redesign a mobile portal. The results were spectacular. Back then we gave away prizes for the best designs, but now with the RDMs we can reward even the slightest creative input."

In exchange [for their services, users] are rewarded with RDMs-RedesignMe's online currency, which is convertible into products in the online RDM Shop such as mp3-players, game consoles and gift cards.

Okay, so maybe they're not really replacing us. But admit it, for a second you were scared. And the company's creepy motto, "Redesign me: Where everybody is a product (re)designer!" almost made me spit coffee all over my laptop napkin.

via marketing web