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On Wednesday, we reviewed different crowdfunding sites that we could get involved with. I am very interested in crowdfunding and actively follow projects that are launched on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, so it is interesting to see how the market has developed over the past few years.

One of the sites we talked about, Kickstarter, was launched from the US in 2009 and has been a great success, so far raising over a billion US dollars for various projects. The site, however, is limited in terms of who can put ideas on it and ask for funding. In the beginning, only US inventors and entrepreneurs could launch campaigns, but the site soon allowed for people from the UK, Australia, Canada, and The Netherlands to launch them as well. Just this summer, the site announced that it was going to open it up to Ireland and to Scandanavia, as seen in the article included below.

Kickstarter Officially Opens to Crowdfunding Campaign Creators in Scandinavia & Ireland

It is a great opportunity for people in these countries to launch campaings. I, however, have a few questions for consideration about the international market for crowdfunding sites as the idea of crowdfunding begins to grow.

First, is what do you think the willingness to contribute to crowdfunding is like in different continents? Is crowdfunding mainly limited to North America and Europe right now or have you seen it expand and reach other markets? Do you think that there are many potential funders in other markets or is crowdfunding mainly a western focused idea right now?

Second, is what do you think competition is like for crowdfunding sites? Is there a large motive to move into international markets and be the first one into those markets? What differentiates one crowdfunding site from another when they are being launched in different countries?

Along with the previous quesiton, my other interest in the development of crowdfunding is the competition in the market. As a contributor, I think it is interesting to look into what makes people go to one crowdfunding site, rather than another. Possible motives for myself to look into different sites would be which has the best reliability in terms of money actually being able to fund products and which site has the most entrepreneurs and inventors contributing to it.

On the other hand, there are different motives for inventors to launch their products on different sites. Some of the reasons can be seen in the article I’ve posted below.

http://crowdfundingdojo.com/articles/kickstarter-vs-indiegogo-choosing-your-crowdfunding-platform

Here is an infographic comparing the success of both sites and the campaigns that they both contribute to (you can click on it to enlarge it).

What parts of sites would help sway you towards one crowdfunding site over another? Would it be different if you were a funder or an inventor? The article below shares a bit of information about the success rates of Indiegogo and Kickstarter, which could sway you as well. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/09/09/donation-based-crowdfunding-sites-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/

Overall, do you think the growth of crowdfunding is a good thing, or would it be just as effective to ask friends for money to help your projects through typical social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, rather than have another platform like Kickstarter or Indiegogo? With these platforms being so new, it will be very interesting to see how they keep developing and expanding into different markets over time.

Sources:

http://pando.com/2013/10/14/infographic-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2013/09/09/donation-based-crowdfunding-sites-kickstarter-vs-indiegogo/

http://crowdfundingdojo.com/articles/kickstarter-vs-indiegogo-choosing-your-crowdfunding-platform

Kickstarter Officially Opens to Crowdfunding Campaign Creators in Scandinavia & Ireland

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In this week’s articles, I learned a lot about peer production and about open-source software. The benefits of both of these topics are wonderful, such as better products, the possibility of better security, and the opportunity to collaborate with other minds. There are drawbacks, however, such as some security concerns and free riders (those who don’t offer much to a product but then claim it as their own).

This infographic shows how open source software is catching up to privatized software.

In the articles assigned, topics such as involvement in the sites were discussed when looking at Chinese Wikipedia in the case of recent blockings. When there are blockings on the site, more users, even those that weren’t from Mainland China, stopped contributing to the site. The researchers found that when there are smaller groups, the contribution increases when group size increases, but when groups become larger, this is no longer the case. Finding a balance for peer production sites is essential for them to be sustainable.

Also motivations for open-source software were discussed in the other two articles. Sometimes motivation involves recognition for the person who is contributing, simply for them to say that they took part in making a better product. Another form of motivation was the actual need for a better product. This is a huge motivator seeing as people will try to develop a better product when they see a need for it. It is really interesting to hear about the different ways that companies attract people to be contributors to open-source software systems. Sometimes, they may even offer them a reward, as was the case for MySQL, after the developers have done something of extreme merit.

One concern for open source is security, which I found in the provided articles and in the other articles that I found. Computer hackers have become very good at their job in recent years and because open-source software is readily available for them to look at, they can easily find bugs within it and circumnavigate the sites to provide them with information that they shouldn’t have. This creates a problem for all players involved in open source software because no one is sure where to place the blame or where the security should be funded. Most seem to believe, however, that the larger companies with bigger products stemming from the systems have the responsibility to make the sites more secure. In one of the articles I found, Google has been paying people rewards in order to find flaws in their system so that people who hack open source software can be deterred once Google fixes the bugs.

This chart demonstrates amount the bug fixes for software design errors and how they are getting smaller and more secure.

Overall, the open source software community is leaning towards being a positive and beneficial thing for the internet right now, but it will be interesting, as more people become knowledgeable about coding, to see if this changes and if people use it for more malicious purposes.

Resources

Albanesius, Chloe. (October 14, 2014). Linux Foundation Backs Open-Sourced Drone Projects. PC Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470364,00.asp

Mickos, Marten. (Fall 2008). The Oh-So-Practical Magic of Open-Source Innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(1).

Osborne, Charlie. (October 1, 2014). Google Triples Chrome Bug Bounty Rewards to $15,000. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/google-triples-chrome-bug-bounty-rewards-to-15000-7000034239/

Strohm, Chris, and Robertson, Jordan. (October 14, 2014). Computer Hacking Scandals Rock Open-Source Software Movement. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Computer+hacking+scandals+rock+open+source+software+community/10288701/story.html

Von Hippel, Eric, and Von Krogh, Georg. (2003). Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science. Organization Science, 14(2), 208-223.

Zhang, Xiaoquan(Michael), and Zhu, Feng. (2011). Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiement at Chinese Wikipedia. American Economic Review, 101(4), 1601-1615.

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Twitter’s promoted ads are ads that show up on our newsfeed and look like all the other tweets that we see, except they have a little arrow and a designation that it is “promoted”. Though many of us dislike the tiny ads that pop up at the bottom of the screen when we are playing games on or using apps other than Twitter, the Twitter “promoted” ads seem more natural as they blend directly into your newsfeed. They are easy to read, simple, and seemingly effective. Instead of having a company’s own app to market itself, such as the reading suggests, buying “promoted” ad space on Twitter may be the best up and coming way to advertise your business. The benefits would be that you do not need to pay a developer to start your own app, you just need to sign up for Twitter and pay for your tweets to be promoted. Also, people may lean more towards the more naturalized, simple ads that happen to appear on their newsfeed while they are enjoying reading their friends tweets, creating a positive experience. Promotion of your business can be done in three different ways on Twitter, with various costs. You could either pay to have a promoted account, where people will see the suggested follow of your business, or you could have a promoted tweet, where people would see the tweet on their newsfeed and your tweet or offer would be directly advertised to them, or you could pay to have a promoted trend, where a specific hashtag relating to your business is available for all to see trending, therefore creating more tweets about the business. These different platforms for advertising on Twitter are helpful to businesses who want to spread more information about their offerings, but also want to avoid being annoying with small, cramped ads on other apps. There is also a tool where the business can follow how much their ads are generating business, which is helpful to track exactly how much return on investment you are receiving for advertising on Twitter.

Just recently, Twitter has come out with a “buy” button that allows users to buy goods from promoted ads on Twitter. This is another step that is enhancing advertising on this social media platform. Right now, for example, you could see a promoted tweet for your favorite band who happens to be selling their band T-shirt on Twitter. Using the “buy” button, you would go into Twitter and buy the shirt directly off the Twitter app. The video in this link explains this in better detail.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101976680

With the possibility of Twitter being a more naturalized, simple way of advertising your business, the guarantee of people seeing your ads by having them be promoted, and the recent ease of buying products directly through the app, Twitter has much potential to be a huge marketplace in the future. I believe that I would buy products through Twitter that were advertised to me seeing that the process is very easy and it is enjoyable to scroll through trends and ads while also seeing my friend’s tweets. Do you think that you would purchase goods using Twitter? Do you believe that the Twitter promoted ads would be a better way of promoting your business, rather than creating your own app that people have to download separately? I believe that in the next few years, if Twitter can successfully introduce and mainstream the “buy” button, advertisers will see a lot of success and will prefer using this method to others. These features are a great first step for Twitter into entering the E-market world.

Here is a poll to see what you and others think about purchasing items using Twitter:

References:

http://www.business2community.com/twitter/use-sponsored-twitter-ads-grow-business-0998047

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/twitter-testing-buy-button-promoted-tweets-article-1.1932316

https://blog.twitter.com/2012/new-targeting-adds-greater-relevance-to-your-promoted-tweets

Analytics tool for analyzing how your tweets are doing when they are promoted: 

https://business.twitter.com/products/analytics