Achieving successful, repeated organizational innovation is a never ending primary challenge for
companies. But often this cannot be pursued in a standalone modality. New practices are emerging
to foster innovation, by building networks for collaboration and leveraging networks of outsiders.
The paper empirically investigates the state of the art of open innovation web-based platforms
(OIWP) through a classification of more than 200 OIWP based on nine variables. The aim is to offer a
framework to position the different platforms, investigating the trends and evolving paths.
The research suggests that the evolution of OIWP is going towards a more structured collective
approach to favor cross-fertilization and technology transfer among companies, where the main
roots to feed an innovation ecosystem based on web platforms are even more the concepts of
communities and cognitive diversity, self-organization, ecosystem and shared fate.
Finally, we present the concept, design and undergoing development of an OIWP named
iCommunity, based on these concepts and projected to increase the innovation landscape of
European SMEs and SMEAGs.
