Crowd Source Capital: Amazon.com Invests $175 Million in LivingSocial Site

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Amazon.com Invests $175 Million in LivingSocial Site

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) --By Joseph Galante

Amazon.com Inc. invested $175 million in LivingSocial.com, a daily coupon website, to benefit from surging demand for online discounts on products and services.

Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners invested $8 million in the site, which will use the funds to expand globally, Washington-based LivingSocial said today in a statement.
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Crowd Source Capital/ Crowd Funding - The Definition

Crowdfunding (sometimes called crowdfinancing or crowdsourced capital) is an approach to raising the capital required for a new project or enterprise by appealing to large numbers of ordinary people for small donations. While such an approach has long precedents in the sphere of charity, it is receiving renewed attention from entrepreneurs such as independent film makers, now that social media and online communities make it possible to reach out to a group of potentially interested supporters at very low cost. Crowdfunding is also being experimented with as a funding mechanism for journalism and music.

To Learn More Click Here

Crowdsurfing

A recent discovery by us of another movement existing alongside Crowdsourcing- "Crowdsurfing" - in the same space. Who knew?

Wikipedia: Crowdsurfing describes the process in which a person is passed overhead from person to person during a concert, transferring the person from one part of the venue to another. The "crowd surfer" is passed above everyone's heads, with everyone's hands supporting the person's weight. At most concerts and festivals the crowd surfer will be passed towards a barrier in front of the stage by the crowd, where they will be pulled off and put onto their feet by the security stewards. Then, they will be sent back to the side or rear of the crowd at the end of the barrier or they may be ejected from the venue (depending on the policy enforced).

Business definition: We would therefore like to welcome you to the world of the crowd surfer: a world in which a new generation of business and political leaders have learned how to harness the energy, ideas and enthusiasm of today’s empowered consumers. They are not manipulators, demagogues or mere populists. They have been smart enough to recognise that people around the globe – emboldened and enthused by a new spirit of enquiry and self-expression, and powered by the internet – have changed the rules of the game. They realise that surrendering absolute control – giving their customers, partners and employees a greater say in the way that their businesses operate – is paradoxically, the most effective way to manage their corporate or political destiny.

In Crowd Surfing, they examine what it takes to become a crowd surfer.

Comments...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Crowdsourcing superstar Aniboom.com cuts deals wit...":

Woah! I'm really digging the template/theme of this website. It's simple, yet effective.

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My blog xfire.com

Posted by Anonymous to Crowd Source Capital at November 8, 2012 5:56 AM

Jerald has left a new comment on your post "How Matt Mickiewicz started 99designs.com and made...":

This is a wonderful opinion. The things mentioned are unanimous and needs to be appreciated by everyone.

Online Marketing in Melbourne

Posted by Jerald to Crowd Source Capital at February 15, 2011 10:30 PM

Subject: [Crowd Source Capital] New comment on How Matt Mickiewicz started 99designs.com and made....

תוכנית עסקית has left a new comment on your post "How Matt Mickiewicz started 99designs.com and made...":

I used 99designs and it is really awesome. The Learnable marketplace also sounds very compelling. I guess he finds himself good in creating marketplaces, although from my experience in creating hundreds of business plans to start-ups - creating a marketplace is x10 harder than a service/content website/application bcs you need to convince both customers and suppliers to use it, while one will not come as long as the other doesn't... so if he manages to create marketplaces - he really has a unique ability in hand. Way to go!!!

maneesh has left a new comment on your post "How Matt Mickiewicz started 99designs.com and made...": very nice post on this blog i like it. Now –a-days, every business advertises promote its products and services by creating a company’s website. There are many website designing company in Delhi which provides web design services, web development, web design and development and many more. After creating your website the first way you can make the internet work for you is thorough SEO work.SEO is vital to your success with internet marketing. Harsharan Landa to me show details 5:01 AM (1 hour ago) Harsharan Landa has left a new comment on your post "9 reasons to crowdfund your next idea": This article was really informative. Thank you. www.harsh.tv Posted by Harsharan Landa to Crowd Source Capital at November 22, 2010 5:01 AM Anonymous to me show details 12:25 PM (19 minutes ago) Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Crowdfunding and Me: Kickstarter vs. IndieGoGo": Yeah you did seem to miss the FACT that no one outside of the usa can use Kickstarter and that IndieGogo came FIRST lol but you know do carry on with the rant and all that ;) Posted by Anonymous to Crowd Source Capital at November 18, 2010 12:25 PM show details 12:40 AM (38 minutes ago) Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Community finance needs some high tech innovation,...": Love your work. Can we work with you to make a open source crowdsource site? Would it be possible to work with you to make a re skinned version of existing software so we can help the public to solve other social issues (Ideally using the http://www.TRAIDmark.org business structure)? Maybe working with someone like http://www.ONEworldHEALTH.org or http://www.earth.org which is closing so maybe this is something I could help you take on so everyone can share local knowledge? Also can http://www.WEBiversity.org share video's and create http://www.TRUSTlibrary.org with your team? http://www.WhymanDesign.com Posted by Anonymous to Crowd Source Capital at October 25, 2010 12:40 AM

Anonymous said...: Well, I wouldn't bash Indiegogo like that.

Yes, it's a clone. But everything will get cloned and honed, that's the law of the internet. Indiegogo is better because it has 4 different ways of payment, including Paypal, and projects can be made internationally, unlike on Kickstarter. So I, who live in finland, could start a project on Indiegogo, but not Kickstarter. Indiegogo is totally needed and has differing market segment.

Then again, Indiegogo has clunky website, you have to look the status of the projects one by one, while on Kickstarter you can see them on the small reviews. Also, the website is a bit too similar.

They also differ, as you noted, on the payment system. Indiegogo made it so that project always gets any money donated. That isn't really a problem, because the project manager can just promise that even if the amount is not met, he'd work towards the goal with the money he got. He could do it partially, and ask more again there for finishing or he could sell ads on the beginning for the rest of the money. I am thinking of getting money for a high-tech product using Indiegogo, the incentive would be to release all software as Free Software, and such stuff...; June 6, 2010 2:08 AM
Renee Johnson said...: Thank you for running this story about our crowd-funding campaign Barkwheats. I will bookmark your blog - it's great to find one dedicated to crowd-funding!; June 2, 2010 6:07 AM

Saw your post on Crowdsourcing resources and figured I'd point you towards our product, UserVoice. We allow you to crowdsource customer feedback through an idea submission and voting system. We are different from the competition (in many ways, but primarily) in that we limit the customer's votes to 10, with 3 max spent on each idea. This forces people to really consider their choices and use the currency of votes wisely...bringing the best content to the top. As customers only get votes back when an idea is completed, it also encourages the company using UserVoice to be consistently listening, responding to, and acting on customer ideas.

Give it a look if you get a chance - I'd be happy to provide more info if you're interested.

http://www.uservoice.com

Keep up the good writing,

-Evan Hamilton

Community Manager

evan at uservoice dot com

Sam said...: “hey guys, there’s been some talk on here about myPadMedia and I thought I’d give it a review after getting my iPad.

I’ve been able to download all the Harry Potter books, the entire Twilight Series, some David Balducci books, and even the comic book of that new movie ‘Kick-Ass’.

You can try it for yourself at – http://bit.ly/cD2Wna

Who else is a member?“; May 6, 2010 1:40 AM

Alan said...: This is a very interesting blog and so i like to visit your blog again and again. Keep it up.

Sharon

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/269017_internet-banking-safety; April 20, 2010 2:43 AM

Hi - I just stumbled across your blog and like what you are doing. I have a deep interest in crowdsourcing and crowdfunding... I am starting a crowdsourced business consulting firm as we speak. We should catch up at some point and share ideas.

--
Kyle Hawke
Founder, Whinot

DChandler said...: I'm a big fan of this blog so don't mean to be critical, but one thing in this post caught my attention.

Because of how MTurk lists the totals, the fact that the number of tasks went from ~192k to 177k doesn't necessarily mean that 15k tasks were done in that short time period. I think that if you post that someone can do your single task and allow it to be done 1000 times, the count goes up by 1000. You could then click cancel and it will go down. So a lot of the churn you see can be driven by that.

Panos Ipeirotis of NYU has the following info on MTurk activity:
http://hyperion.stern.nyu.edu/mturk/
... as well as top requesters.
http://hyperion.stern.nyu.edu/mturk/requesters.php

Other than that small point, I think this post is dead on and that businesses certainly have a use for MTurk. Unfortunately, MTurk's interface is still kind of clunky and businesses have to go through intermediaries like CrowdFlower or Smartsheets to get stuff done. It's hard to just crowdsource a single one-off task.

Keep up the great work!

Dana Chandler; March 28, 2010 1:08 PM

David Airey said...: Hello. To clarify, I'm misquoted in your post, saying things I never did.; March 15, 2010 1:27 PM

I came across your site by chance today....you are doing a lot of great stuff....anyways you might want to check out the vpanel of feb 26^th at www.shiftworldwide.com and the presentation I gave on March 10^th at IIMA in Vancouver (www.iimaonline.org).

Rick

Rick Goossen, CEO

T: 604-685-7784

C: 604-785-6334

Skype: rickgoossen

"Good for Business"

Anonymous said...: ArtistShare has been doing it successfully for years. They seem to have a more realized version and the product seems to be more mature and realized. I agree, just selling a CD isn't cutting it anymore.; March 6, 2010 7:04 AM
Anonymous said...: There is another concept that works well at the moment and that applies to any type of art (including music, movies, books, painters, etc). Basically, artists set up a fundraising goal as well as a deadline to raise the money. If they reach the fundraising goal by the deadline, the money is transfered to them, otherwise it is given back to investors. What's more, crowdfunders are not actual investors, since what they get back in exchange is rewards based on how much they gave, like for instance if they give 5€ to a book project they'll get a digital copy of it, and if they give 20€ they'll get the actual signed copy.
I found a website following that model called FansNextdoor.com.
Any thoughts on this model?; March 7, 2010 5:12 AM
Merran said...: Thanks for the post. You’re right, we’re really trying to shift focus from technology with Dot and encourage people to think about how their mobile can make life better and more fun. We’ve got some great suggestions so far and it’ll be interesting to see what else people want to see.; February 26, 2010 2:32 AM

investment catcher has left a new comment on your post "Crowd Sourcing and Disruption":

This is a wonderful website!!　
勉強になります。ありがとう！ Thank you!!

I'd be pleased if you exchange reciprocal link with me.
よろしくお願いします。
お互いがんばりましょう。
http://easy-happy-invest.blogspot.com/

この記事の中でリンクしています。
(2010/03/01)
Easy investment : fund : investment trust
http://easy-happy-invest.blogspot.com/2010/03/fund-investment-trust.html
良かったらご覧になってください。

Posted by investment catcher to Crowd Source Capital at February 28, 2010 8:35 AM

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Francesco D’Orazio on outsourcing to the masses......":

Hi guys, thanks for covering this! I just wanted to let you know that there's an updated version of this interview on Brand-e (the original version included some copy that wasn't exactly what I said ;-) amended version here http://brand-e.biz/outsourcing-to-the-masses_3903.html it would be great if you could update the article here as well... thanks a lot, cheers, Fran

Design Chords said...: Thanks for mentioning about us on your blog. We appreciate it.

Hi there,

I really enjoyed reading your story:
http://crowdsourcecapital.blogspot.com/2009/08/shapeways-opens-3-d-creation_12.html

And made me think you might like to know about this ...
Ponoko - the world's easiest making system
- An online marketplace for everyone to make stuff, locally.
- Designs are instantly priced online, then made and delivered on demand.
- For creators, digital manufacturers, materials suppliers and consumers.
- Over 30,000 user generated products made to date.
- Launched in 2007 at TechCrunch40 in San Francisco and reported in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, BBC News, The Globe and Mail, WIRED Magazine, The International Design Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Boing Boing, Engadget, Core77, etc, etc.
- You can find out more here: http://www.ponoko.com/about/the-big-idea
I'm looking forward to reading your next edition! :)

Best wishes,

Olga

Olga Sasplugas
Marketing

Anonymous said...: And it's happening for filmmakers on IndieGoGo. Exciting stuff. (www.indiegogo.com)

Hi James,
Thanks for the Crowd Source Capital coverage. You can check out our Facebook Application here if you're curious. Through this app, fans don't have to leave Facebook to take action (contribute, share, etc.) We were one of Facebook's "Facebook Connect" launch partners; so all activity you and your fans take on both IndieGoGo hits the newsfeeds and walls on Facebook. Cool stuff.

Cheers
Danae
www.indiegogo.com

Anonymous said...: Never mind the potential liability Prosper.com is facing after having sold almost $180 million in unregistered securities...
Sarah Blue said...: Hi, That TechCrunch post is over a year old and...not true.

Cambrian House is still alive, we have a crowdsourcing technology platform built on years of experience and we're currently pleased about how everything is going. You can check it out at www.cambrianhouse.com and our platform at www.chaordix.com

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, that's just silly ;)
Blue
clark said...: Thanks for the post! We've had our first wave of sales and quite a bit of interest from both artists who submit tag art and pet owners looking for a fashionable pet id tag.; July 21, 2009 6:55 PM

Abagale said...: I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty

Crowd Source Capital

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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Amazon.com Invests $175 Million in LivingSocial Site

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Harsharan Landa

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