Review: IdeaScale

IdeaScale recently caught our attention, partly because it’s the preferred crowdsourcing platform for the US government. Currently, 23 agencies in the U.S. Federal Government are using IdeaScale to power crowdsourcing initiatives. The U.S. Department of State is using IdeaScale to crowdsource ideas and suggestions on policy. The Obama administration also used IdeaScale to solicit ideas from government agencies on its Open Government initiative. Although it’s more a customer feedback loop than anything else, we love it because it gives anyone the opportunity to use crowdsourcing – even if it’s the very simple kind. 

Think of it as WordPress for crowdsourcing. You can customize your portal with CSS and even choose your own URL. You can use wiki-style editing to tweak and build upon ideas. IdeaScale uses integration tools such as to provide iPhone support, wiki support, and Twitter/Facebook integration. Moderating and reviewing ideas is simple and the amount of ideas and contributors is unlimited.