Page 264 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

8.8 Social Collaboration (Collaboration 2.0) and the Future of Social Commerce 249

Example: How Airbnb Created a Film notable company is Kickstarter. For how they help small
Airbnb is a global marketplace for vacation rentals (190 businesses, see the 2013 video youtube.com/watch?v=xud
countries). Using a crowdsourcer vendor, Vines, the com- OhEYIwyU.
pany created a successful 4.5 min film which was presented
at the Sundance Channel. The project started by inviting Examples of Crowdfunding
Airbnb community to participate by twitting them a story-
An increased number of startups are using crowdfunding to
board of shots created by Vines. According to Gioglio (2015),
“The Vine scenes were solicited over a 6-day period, during raise funds for their businesses. Here are four examples:
which Airbnb leveraged Twitter (twitter.com/Airbnb) as its
• Filmmaker Zach Braff used Kickstarter to raise money for
‘director’ by tweeting visual twitpic instructions to commu-
nicate how different clips should be created. Following each his 2013 film (watch the video “Zach Braff Uses
Kickstarter to Get Money for Next Film” (0:51 min) at
short list tweet, fans had 48 h to submit their creation for a
chance to be included and earn a $100 Airbnb credit. Over youtube.com/watch?v=CIyJtcxjWhw.
• Zach Danger Brown collected over $52,000 on Kickstarter
the course of the campaign, 44 unique Vine shot numbers
were pitched to the Airbnb community. In the end, Airbnb in July 2014 for his “potato salad” idea. For details, see Root
(2014) and a video about how the collection went global at
collected over 750 submissions, more than 100 of which abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/zach-danger-browns-
were included in the short film.”
potato-salad-kickstarter-global-24464503.
• The digital music phenomenon, Kawehi, is raising money
Example: Innovation Excellence—A Marketplace
for Crowdsourcing via Kickstarter to promote her music projects in Hawaii.
According to its website, Innovation Excellence (innovation- For details, see Russo (2014).
• Next Thing Co. raised $700,000 from 15,000 people,
excellence.com) is a multinational social marketplace with
about 1,000,000 registered experts in more than 170 coun- using Kickstarter in May 2015. The company boasted that
they would produce $9 computer. For details, see della
tries. As a problem-solving individual or research organiza-
tion, one can create a profile, make professional contacts, and Cava (2015).
connect with colleagues (for a fee), peers, and friends. If you
For eight successful Kickstarter campaigns, see Serino
are a problem solver and only want to solve problems on (2015). For a crowdfunding strategy guide, see Stegmaier
Innovation Excellence, you choose what information you
(2015).
want to disclose and decide who can see it. In Innovation For tools for crowdfunding, see Roth (2016).
Excellence, users can share activities with their contacts on
other social networks. You can develop your own networks or
join one of the many networks that already exist on Innovation
Excellence. Users can meet with people who share their inter- SECTION 8.7 REVIEW QUESTIONS
ests and follow their friends’ activities. After seeing what their
friends are working on, people can decide to either compete or 1. Define crowdsourcing.
collaborate with their friends on problem-solving. 2. List the seven crowdsourcing models.
Note: Crowdsourcing is used by thousands of volunteers 3. List the major steps of the crowdsourcing process.
to search disaster areas, such as typhoons in the Philippines 4. What are the capabilities of Kickstarter and Innovation
and locating the missing MH370 Malaysian jet. Excellence?

Tools for Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding
8.8 SOCIAL COLLABORATION
To launch crowdsourcing initiatives, businesses and develop- (COLLABORATION 2.0)
ers can make use of crowdsourcing tools and platforms, such AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL
as NineSigma, InnoCentive, YourEncore, yet2, UserVoice, COMMERCE
Get Satisfaction, and IdeaScale.
One of the major applications of Web 2.0 and social media in
Crowdfunding and Kickstarter the enterprise is in the area of collaboration. Some even
equate Web 2.0 with enterprise collaboration. Social collabo-
Raising funds from the crowd for different purposes is gain- ration is used for many purposes, an important one being
ing popularity with several start-ups operating in this area. A product design.