ZTE Is Crowdsourcing Ideas to Create the Perfect Smartphone

Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE has launched a website soliciting ideas for a new mobile device, called Project CSX. ZTE committed to doing crowdsourcing its next product earlier this year at CES.

There are very few limitations on the kinds of suggestions that are acceptable, according to The Verge. Suggestions, which can be submitted on community.zteusa.com, should be affordable, related to mobile devices, and feasible by 2017. Unlike Kickstarter which solicits cash for ideas, ZTE is soliciting ideas in exchange for cash. Winning submissions will be awarded with small cash prizes.

According to The Verge, ZTE USA CEO Lixin Cheng announced in a press statement that the company planned to crowdsource “something entirely new, from start to finish”. While ZTE of course maintains editorial discretion and has the right to pick and choose the ideas it wants, the point seems to create something very different and exciting. Indeed, PC Mag reports that the parameters of what precisely Project CSX will turn out to be are very broad and ambiguous. The mobile device it seeks to construct need not necessarily be a smartphone and could ostensibly be anything from a drone to a VR headset.

PC Mag also astutely observes that Project CSX is a marketing ploy as much as it is a request for innovative ideas. ZTE is a relatively unknown company in the United States and crowdsourcing a new product may prove to be a great way to generate buzz and foster brand loyalty.