CrowdSound Makes Suggestions a Popularity Contest

CrowdSound, which launched last week in a public beta, is the latest in a recent batch of web products to join the customer service space. Other contenders include UserVoice, SuggestionBox, GetSatisfaction, and SalesForce IdeaExchange.

The site offers an embeddable Digg-like widget that allows users to submit their suggestions, or to give a “thumbs up” or “down” to comments left by others. After leaving a suggestion, users can opt-in for email updates on the site’s progress. Site administrators can access a dashboard panel that lets them search through suggestions and to assign each with a progress label (“Under Review”, “Completed”, etc.).

The CrowdSound widget seems like it might be useful for small or medium sized companies, but the popularity system will run into problems on a bigger scale. Users will be forced to search through a large number of past suggestions to make sure theirs hasn’t already been created (the site tries to show previous relevant comments, but results are poor if you’ve chosen a different wording than someone else).