Crowdsourcing a Roadmap

I'm surrised this has taken so long to happen, but over Christmas Airbnb, and then Twitter, asked its users what new features they should be developing, essentially crowdsourcing their development roadmap.

Brian Chesky from Airbnb posted this on Christmas Day -

If @Airbnb could launch anything in 2017, what would it be?

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) December 26, 2016

& has had over 2,000 suggestions -

Thanks for the 2,000 submissions. Most popular: Bitcoin, Guest Loyalty, upgraded homes & services, group travel, things to do, and Mars https://t.co/DbrBSTDlCl

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) December 30, 2016

(I love 'Mars')

We will now prioritize everything and start shipping... a lot is coming in 2017.

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) December 30, 2016

A simple tweet generated lots of free ideas, and also gave the fans a feeling that they were contributing.

Jack Dorsey also did this for Twitter (and Square),

Following in the footsteps of Brian Chesky: what's the most important thing you want to see Twitter improve or create in 2017? #Twitter2017

— jack (@jack) December 29, 2016

Jack also had lots of feedback, and responded -

Abuse: obviously a ton of work ahead but biggest ask was for greater transparency around our actions (or inaction) and faster shipping

— jack (@jack) December 30, 2016

Topics: lots here but simply being able to follow topics was strongest request. Being more topic/interest-focused (v account) opens up a lot

— jack (@jack) December 30, 2016

We'll consider everything we heard from you. Not going to ship all of it, but will be more transparent about why and what we learned

— jack (@jack) December 30, 2016

To be honest, these must have been things that Jack had heard every time he spoke to users, but it may be that some, like the ability to edit (maybe just in the first 2 minutes) will now be given much more focus.