Crowdsourcing to Crowd Funding
Crowdsourcing, a word that coined in the last few years to describe the process by which an organization puts out a request to the crowd for information, ideas and solutions.
Now comes crowd funding, an offshoot discussed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. In this variation on crowdsourcing, customers or enthusiasts can invest small amounts in a given product or venture, in return for a share of any profits that might ensue. Meanwhile, these small web-savvy investors also have an immediate interest in promoting the product or venture by posting messages in appropriate venues on the Internet. So far, the concept of crowd funding is getting its first major tryouts in the worlds of music and fashion, through various websites dedicated to promoting the efforts of new artists in these fields. The success of these early crowd funding initiatives may help introduce the idea to the broader business world.
