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Crowdsourcing platform Kluster has graced these pages on numerous occasions this year, including the related launches of Knewsroom and NameThis. Turns out Knewsroom was disbanded a few weeks ago—owing primarily to high costs, the Kluster team says—but now the company has introduced support for new private Klusters designed to help groups manage decision making on specific topics. Private Klusters are designed to enable collaborative brainstorming on myriad different questions by allowing invited participants to share their opinions on a relevant, customized set of criteria. One private Kluster might be focused on finding a new logo, for example. In such a case, participants might rate submitted ideas based on criteria including “uniqueness,” “cool,” “colour scheme” and “readability.” Some decision criteria can be given a heavier weight than others to reflect higher importance, and so can the criteria by which they are judged (e.g., ‘profitability’ vs. ‘commercial feasibility’). Indeed, some participants’ opinions can be given more weight as well—such as those of designers in a design-focused decision. Kluster will tell the user how much support an idea has, from whom and why, as well as whose support will be essential to make it succeed. Private Klusters can support unlimited numbers of participants in a secure, personalized environment; ideas can be shared using text, audio, video or virtually any uploadable file. After a 30-day free trial period, pricing begins at USD 27 monthly for up to three projects per month; no long-term contracts are required. What will be next out of Kluster’s crowdsourcing kitchens? We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, one to try out! (Related: Open polls gauge popular opinion in minutes.) Spotted by: Matthew Cua