The plan is for the two companies to deliver to market what could be the world's first community-designed notebooks and netbooks.

The idea seems similar to Dell's IdeaStorm, which allows users to suggest ideas for Dell to implement, and allows other users to vote them up or down, giving Dell a means to assess their popularity. The site also includes introductions from blogs such as Ubergizmo and Hot Hardware. The community will be divided into three conversation groups, addressing three of the most popular consumer PC categories: netbooks, notebooks and gaming notebooks, according to the two companies.

Prizes will be awarded to "select participants," although what those prizes actually are will be determined at a later date, both companies said.

The site seems to be an offshoot of the design process that produced the Eee PC, also a collaboration between Asus and Intel. Jonny Shih, the chief executive of Asustek, launched the Eee PC at the 2001Computex, at a $199 price point.

"Asus and Intel have created WePC.com in an effort to bridge innovation and technology with consumers' wishes," said Lillian Lin, director of ASUS' Marketing Planning Division, in a statement. "Asus strives to provide the best user experience with our products. By empowering WePC.com users to play a role in the design process, we expect to deliver cutting-edge community-designed products that address a consumer vision of the dream PC."

In my opinion, both companies should take a page from Dell and focus on bite-size pieces of the problem, instead of asking potential customers for a feature list. Entries like these attack the problem with a list of features, but some of them are already on existing PCs. I was more impressed by the proposal that has floated to the top of IdeaStorm: whether you agree with it or not, it's a simple feature, easily implemented, that would appeal to consumers.