Crowdfunding

Article 1- Crowdfunding and Non-Profit Media

Summary: The media environment has changed over the past few years. Thanks to online advertising, business models have thrived, but there is question of relevance behind traditional media management practices. An example of traditional media in this case is the newspaper. In an effort to promote and preserve public interest journalism, non-profit institutions and community-funded platforms are the most innovative and relevant alternatives. These alternatives promote audience involvement, using crowdfunding, or they are funded through grants. The article also highlights the benefits of crowdfunding, which include transparency, user involvement, and control over where the money goes.

Article 2- Planning in Public: Citizen Involvement, Open Innovations, and Crowdsourcing

Summary: In this article, the authors discuss how citizen participation has four main purposes in the planning process. There is data gathering, legitimization, ethics, and resilience. The authors also reveal that we need to understand more about the planning process as it will make us more productive. The practice of open innovation, taken from fields of business strategy and technology, can offer planners new insight. One innovation is citizen participation, which is an “outside-the-box” way to find solutions and ideals. A technique in this regard is called crowdsourcing, which can range from opinion surveys, Internet-mediated piecework, and “citizen-as-sensor” initiatives.

Article 3- Everyone Is a Venture Capitalist: The New Age of Crowdfunding

Summary- This article focuses on crowdfunding and the U.S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. It talks about a Kickstarter project which raised over one million dollars in just over 24 hours. Entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky created a digital watch that connects to smartphones and iPhones through Bluetooth with software application support. However, he was unable to get venture capital support...