Business resources just became easier to find. “What citizen journalism and YouTube have done for media, CrowdSpirit hopes to do for product development,” according to this post on Springwise, a blog on future business ideas.

As the name suggests, CrowdSpirit is part of the crowdsourcing phenomenon, but it takes it into a new wave, where the ‘group think’ method is used to refine real world hardware products. Crowdspirt “aims to start a revolution in manufacturing by creating the first electronic products driven and inspired by customer’s wishes and expectations.”

This site encourages inventors to submit electronic product designs to the online CrowdSpirit community, who in open source fashion, refine the original products and vote on which ones should move forward.

Open source is moving beyond software to book editing. McKenzie Wark, author of the draft networked book, GAM3R 7H3ORY 1.1, is turning to fellow computer game lovers to help write his book.

In collaboration with The Institute for the Future of the Book, Wark made his book available for discussion and revisions online. Gamer geeks can view the book’s nine chapters, comment on the content, create new topics and make suggestions in regards to game play. Contributors will receive credit for anything that makes it into the final version of the book, which is trying to “unlock the curious character of video games as allegories for the world we live in,” according to Wark. The newest print edition is due out in the spring, but it might not be the last. The book will remain online and will evolve along with the gaming communities comments.

Bloggers are beginning to get the same publishing rights as journalists. Just yesterday the California Supreme Court ruled that a blogger cannot be sued for slanderous comments posted on their blog by readers.

In another recent free speech case, David Milum became the first blogger to lose a libel suit. He now owes $50,000 to a lawyer he defamed with false accusations of bribery on his website.

Although judgments vary depending on the accusation, in this case, David Milum was liable because the comments were from his own blog. But what rules apply to websites with collaborative contributors?

This was asked at IPKAT by Hubert Best. “Does the rise of network journalism present a new challenge to the frontier between copyright and freedom of expression?’”