Although I don’t own an iPad, I was impressed with the Cloak – a case that allows you to prop up the iPad in in portrait, landscape, and typing stand positions. But what impressed me more was the site that was selling the Cloak, Quirky.com. Listed at the side of product’s information is bunch of names and the amount of money each person gets from sales of the Cloak.

Quirky is crowd sourcing a community of inventors to come up with their next cool product and influence the decisions on the designs. The community members who share their ideas and provide feedback on other people’s products earn a percentage of the product’s earnings. Quirky, meanwhile, turns around these products quickly, gives credit where it is due, and markets the products with a cool story of how the community made this all possible.

It’s an inspiring process. I can’t help but feel that sharing ideas with friends would be more productive if those friends helped develop those ideas to the next level and everybody felt a bit of ownership in the process. The fact that Quirky produces a tangible product at the end of the day makes it all seem that much more rewarding.