Carlis Collins asked:


Recently Google (GOOG) acquired the assets and technology of Zingku, a mobile social network startup that helps users organize their social life via the Web and text messaging. The Zingku service has been in private beta and new user accounts are currently frozen.

This is not the first time Google has acquired an early-stage startup company and it won’t be the last. The Zingku deal helps to create a new roadmap for Google’s Orkut social network. While Google lost out to MySpace and Facebook in the US, Orkut is doing extremely well in India and South America.

Taking this demographic into consideration, what can Google do to improve Orkut’s position and what might be the next start-up they can acquire to help Orkut succeed?

www.IdeaMamaClub.com looks like an attractive acquisition candidate that can give a different flavor to user interactions on Orkut, and it offers new ways of monetizing this social network. By integrating IdeaMama’s framework for quickly building virtual companies, Orkut can become a catalyst for attracting talent from India and South America and this new twist can also attract new US users as well. Being self-funded by its founder Olga Kostrova, IdeaMama can be a very attractive acquisition candidate — from a financial stand point, its valuation has not been skyrocketed by venture capital.

Would Google be outbided again by Microsoft (MSFT) as it happens with Facebook where it prevailed in its bid for a stake of the company ($240 million piece of the company in a transaction that values Facebook at $15 billion)?

There are a few standard reasons why companies such as Google or Microsoft buy an early stage start-up — technology, team, and client base. What is often overlooked however, is the possibility of monetizing all of the human, intellectual and other assets. IdeaMama has an extraordinary, dynamic, and visionary leader, as well as many contributing members who hold a wide range of patents. But most importantly, IdeaMama offers a way for larger companies to capitalize on their own unused assets. IdeaMamaClub.com is more than just an on-line business network; it is a unique collaborative virtual catalyst for inventions and business ideas, and it is enhanced by many innovative tools and features.IdeaMama’s Web-based software creates a community of loyal users who are dedicated to connecting visionaries — people who brainstorm on innovative ideas, plan new projects, structure and market the products of their collaboration as unique investment opportunities, and finally bring collective inventions to market.

Memebers of IdeaMama not only enjoy the process, while learning and co-creating, but they also receive tremendous financial opportunities. Participating members may have equity in their newly designed businesses or they may work on a profit sharing basis — time and expertise can be very valuable and compensation is determined by the team members.

For Microsoft, the deal can help them capitalize on the thousands patents they hold; Microsoft holds over 5,000 patents in the United States and an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 more applications are waiting approval. In addition, through IdeaMama, Microsoft could capitalize on the millions of patents, filed by individual inventors that are related to Microsoft’s line of business.
Both Google and Microsoft could benefit from rolling their user base into a collaborative process using IdeaMama’s crowdsourcing process as a mean to more efficient innovation.

Whether IdeaMama will be private labeled, or keep its own funky brand, a strategic buyer will have access to the platform and the framework where other sponsoring organizations can communicate securely and efficiently. Through IdeaMama a company can engage employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, and supporters to collaboratively innovate according to organizational objectives and initiatives.

“IdeaMama is not just a technology,” says Olga Kostrova, founder of IdeaMama Group. “Is it the next revolution in business? Probably. We are happy to pioneer a new approach to business, and tear down the walls that disconnect individuals, enterprises, and various social initiatives.

“We advocate a new philosophy and nurture a culture of co-creating and giving back. We use the newest trends such as collaboration, virtualization, and Web 3.0 to develop a Web- and event-based platform that helps to build transparent, ethical, socially responsible enterprises. Through next-generation partnerships between corporations and social activists, IdeaMama positively impacts socio-economic and environmental challenges.

“We designed our collaborative incubation platform to support a shift in focus to corporate citizenship, based on transparency and accountability, with increased emphasis on linking business growth and profitability to sustainability. Now organizations can engage their members, employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, and fans, and invite them to innovate together. The time when corporations dictated what consumers can purchase is now gone. Customers now define what they buy and how they want products to be marketed to them. If you don’t listen closely to your customers’ immediate needs and global concerns, they will go somewhere else.

“Now, more than ever, the importance lies on real value not only for individual consumers but for the world. We encourage organizations to get involved with global initiatives, stop relying exclusively on their in-house R&D programs, and remove the walls to innovation. By building a closer relationship with communities of independent inventors and social entrepreneurs, organizations can innovate efficiently, for the good of humanity.”

Weather IdeaMama will be acquired by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, or AOL, the investment would create thousands new jobs and lead to true changes in the world where human interactions are designed for the purpose of co-creating a better future.