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E-commerce platforms dedicated to crowdfunded products have recently begun to pop up. At their core, they aim to answer the question, “What next?” that owners of successfully funded projects need to answer if they wish to turn their one-time campaign into a sustainable business. We highlight one of the newcomers.

Heineken’s Ideas Brewery launched an open innovation challenge on Tuesday, aiming to “reinvent the draught beer experience.” This is the Ideas Brewery’s second contest. The competition aims to make beer drinking more entertaining and stimulating.

In the wake of the recent Beijing floods, which caused at least 77 deaths as they rushed through the capital July 21, the crowd took to the web to map the most heavily impacted areas. The citizens’ joint crowdmapping effort not only materialized prior to the government-sanctioned map, but it also proved more accurate and intuitive.

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) recently sent a letter to President Obama regarding crowdfunding regulation. The letter discusses a number of issues the senator thinks the SEC should consider when formulating crowdfunding rules. These include funding portal regulation, investor protections, and advertising.

Back in 2010, economics and psychology Professor Joseph Henrich confirmed what many of us have suspected for a while: that students who took part in psychological studies were predominantly WEIRD.

We bring your attention to a several crowdsourcing and crowdfunding platforms and projects that piqued our interest. These include Comics Accelerator, Noodlecrumbs, and iAMscientist.

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MORE FROM CROWDSOURCING.ORG

Questions from the Crowd

Cost to start crowdfunding platform Ann Anne

Models and/or strategies on crowdsourcing Patrik Hedljung

Crowdsourcing university research group Enrique Estelles

Upcoming Events

Oct. 9 - 11, 2012

Crowdfund Bootcamp and
1st annual CfPA convention

Create the Next Big Crowdfunding Platform in a Week with Launcht

Launcht co-founders Freeman White and Spencer Taylor wanted to help social entrepreneurs. They set up a crowdfunding platform, Launcht.org, dedicated specifically to raising money for entrepreneurs' projects. They also gave entrepreneurs the tools necessary to create their own platforms to raise money from the crowd.

Crowdsource Your Health [Video]

With the tap of a smartphone, anyone can find the nearest ATM, gas station, or restaurant. But what about nearby defibrillators? Lucien Engelen, founding director of the Radboud REshape & Innovation Centre, answers this question with AED4.US, Rabound’s effort to crowdmap all automatic electronic defibrillators (AEDs).

crowdfunder Aims to Kickstart Local Economies with Crowdfunding

The following post comes to us from Chance Barnett, co-founder and CEO of crowdfunder, which has been holding a series of startup competitions across the country this year in advance of the crowdfunding system legalized in the JOBS Act to drive home the notion that equity crowdfunding holds major promise for local economies.