[owenthethird]

Thanks so much for the interest (Owen from Coshx here). The voting will be 100% public for the first round in order to pick the 5 finalists. If an individual or team can get the entire 4chan community behind them, then I call that market validation and more power to them! Official rules will be sent out soon and they state that an individual or team must be behind the concept, but that operating companies are excluded from getting free work. We want to help someone launch and idea, not reduce costs for a profitable company.

[dangrossman]

Being able to get 4chan to vote on something is probably more correlated with meme creation skill than validation of a market for any product. This type of contest often measures the size of participants' networks and their ability to leverage it, not the things being voted on. Lots of them run by large brands end up being won by people like teachers who can convince their boss to ask all the students in the district to vote for their teacher because they know him/her, regardless of the idea submitted.

[owenthethird]

If we help a teacher launch a great idea then I will consider this competition to be a resounding success. I am sure some people will try and 'game' the voting, but this is part of the reason the final winner will be picked by experts. We toyed with picking the winner ourselves, but this is against the spirit of what we are trying to accomplish.