The authors populate their book with anecdotes, including the inspirational tale of the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., a struggling, Canadian mining company. He put reams of geological information on the Web and challenged browsers to find remaining gold deposits. The project offered $575,000 in prize money, drew hundreds of entrants and helped propel the firm from a $100 million company to a $9 billion one.

Cited in the review, Yet2.com:

Intangibles such as intellectual property (IP) comprise as much as 75% of the market value of many companies. Yet, many companies do a less-than-optimal job of leveraging and extracting value from their IP.

Our principal services are assisting our clients in:

- Realizing a return on their IP investments –yet2.com excels at locating unrealized IP value potential, especially in situations where IP and technology offer substantial market opportunities for products, services or cooperative relationships with third parties.

- Acquiring IP and accessing technology solutions –yet2.com finds IP and technology around the globe, enabling clients quickly and efficiently to enhance their own resources and to address gaps in their IP portfolios.

Founded in 1999, yet2.com is focused on bringing buyers and sellers of technologies together so that all parties maximize the return on their investments. Whether you are working with a team of our licensing experts or using our virtual technology marketplace, yet2.com offers companies and individuals the tools and expertise to acquire, sell, license, and leverage some of the world’s most valuable intellectual assets.

I wonder… maybe… if Robin Hanson had posted his Market Scoring Rule technology at Yet2.com… maybe BetFair CEO David Yu (seeking to implement multiple bets) would have spotted it.

See my previous blog post on invention and innovation.

And that little rascal of Mike Linksvayer promised to the readers of his blog, in 2005, to deal on the difference between invention and innovation, and we’re still waiting.

This reminds me of another pet peeve that I’ve been meaning to write about: invention is not innovation and innovation is more important than invention.

Hurry up, man. We’re in 2007. Time to keep your word.

Addendum: Wikinomics at NPR.