I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a coffee fanatic. I’ve spent countless hours on the CoffeeGeek.com forums and invested in a bunch of home equipment, all with the goal of making the perfect cup of coffee. The more time you spend in the world of coffee, the more you realize that the perfect cup is an elusive thing. The beans, the water, the grind, the temperature, the machine, the pressure, the tamp … they all make a difference. I'd say my one greatest learning is that the true coffee fanatic is really seeking consistency which leads to good coffee.

When I was asked to test out a Nespresso machine I was inherently skeptical. All of the manual factors I just talked about disappeared and I was convinced that something so easy couldn't produce a cup of coffee worth drinking. I've had previous experiences with systems from Keurig, Flavia, and Senseo, all of which were fairly lackluster. Why should Nespresso be any different?

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Ben Kaufman wants you to work for him. And you. And you. And all those people in that building next to you. We told you about his ever morphing business of crowdsourced product development called Kluster. Now it has landed on something new: Knewsroom, a user powered daily news feed. Of course, Kaufman doesn’t expect you to power his enterprise for nothing. That’s why every day, if you’ve submitted or bet correctly on the winning stories, you get cash. It’s kind of like a headline horse race, and you’re the one feeding the pony anabolic steroids. No, wait. It’s kind of like CNN meets American Idol. Well, it’s not quite that either. Here, Ben can explain it better. Oh, and he’s also throwing a party with Mashable at Webster Hall on Friday. Just tell him we sent you. When that doesn’t work, pay for a ticket.

Several days ago at the TED conference we told you about Kluster's mission to create a product in seventy-two hours with the assistance of one thousand of the brightest people in the world. Well, the results are in, the votes have been tallied and we have your product. The result of the massive meeting of the minds is over there. No, don't look behind you, that's the name of the product. Over There is an ingenious (it better be if it had that many minds working on it) board game that both tests and fosters global awareness. It’s also the first of what we hope to be many productions developed start to finish through the Kluster team — and we couldn’t be more excited to watch what happens.

Kluster, founded by friend and young punk Ben Kaufman is in full force here at TED. The former iPod accessory entrepreneur recently (ie: last week) launched his new platform to allow groups of people (just like you and me) to affect decision making processes inside what for has long been a buttoned up-decision making process. I encourage everyone to pop by the site, check out some of the open projects and watch the tutorials to learn more. It’s a truly unique and game changing proposition.

The deal at TED is simple; Kluster is going to create a brand new product in the next 72 hours, with the help of the “1000 brightest people in the world” and all of you. That time is broken down into phases starting with the inception (the idea), through industrial design, naming, engineering, identity and branding, ad campaign, and finally packaging. There’s a good 7 hours left in the first phase (brainstorming the product idea), where users can contribute ideas (sparks) as well as invest their currency (watts) towards the future of the project. The team has kitted out a hotel room suite with all the fixings of a true prototype lab, 3D printers and tools. 72 hours from now, we’ll see what idea rises to the top and into the hands of everyone involved.

To make the deal a little sweeter, the team at Kluster put up $15,000 in rewards. Fancy yourself an innovator and think you can contribute? Time is running out. Go get involved!