Speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today Joichi Ito, venture capitalist and CEO, Creative Commons (CC), told the 500-strong audience that the next significant challenge for technologists lies in the collaborative manipulation of applications and content.

“We need to create standards that harness the opportunity for collaboration that the Internet enables,” said Ito.

His contention is that it’s wrong that legal and licensing costs are now the most significant barrier between third parties seeking to collaborate and reckons CC is the answer.

CC has defined six flavours of legal contracts from full copyright to public domain that are available and enforceable in almost every country in the world.

Ito said that the benefits of using a CC licence are both creative and financial.

He cited the example of Nine Inch Nails. When it released Ghosts under a CC license it drove amateur remixes and hype that resulted in it becoming the number one paid MP3 download on Amazon in 2008.

Other CC customers include Al Jazeera, Flickr, Google and Wikipedia.

The report celebrates every aspect of the digital supply chain from affiliate marketing to web analytics. The report should be required reading for anyone working in the digital sector.

Here are some examples that I particularly liked.

eBags: a planning project by Silverpop to send out emails personally timed to generate best return. Conversation rates up 65 per cent

Idée image search: search for Creative Commons images posted on Flickr by colour palate

Innocent AGM promoted via Twitter: an excellent case study for the commercial use of Twitter as a communication channel

Kiva: microfinance venture capitalist matching finance in $25 chunks to entrepreneurs in the developing world

Nearest tube application: can I have an iPhone 3GS for Christmas please so that I can tinker with this augmented reality tube finder application from acrossair?

The Rubicon Project: an ad network that optimises web inventory for publishers and claims revenue improvements of 30 to 300 per cent