The coolest thing about what’s going on with the Web right now is that game-changing innovation is sparked by small teams of smart, motivated people who just do stuff.  They try things.  They hack on their ideas and put it out there.  Some take off, some don’t.  The difference between now and 8-10 years ago is that the audience is really there, so the really cool ideas can really take off.  And thanks to open source software and open platforms, part of that “take off” is others contributing to the ideas to make them better.

This model has been limited to software, but BugLabs is taking it to hardware.  The BUG is a collection of open-source hardware modules that you can snap together to make your own custom device.  If they can successfully connect these gadgets so that the collaboration and community building can happen as seamlessly as it does online, there’s no telling what people will come up with.  Check out the video with founder/CEO Peter Semmelhack and marketing guy Jeremy Toeman:

It’s cool to see this “rough” product display, brought to us via a cell phone video interview, generating buzz and getting the word out.  No need for fancy marketing speak and flashy demos.  I’ll take an unedited chat with a founder/CEO showing off his/her product any day.  In this case, my favorite quote from Peter is:

“I’m building it because I really want it.”

That’s how the best stuff comes to be.  Kudos to Scoble for the interview.  My second favorite quote is Peter calling his company “Bell Labs” — a mistake I’ve never made at Viget Labs.

My dad, who was hacking on hardware and software as far back as I can remember, would have loved this thing.