Last year’s year: 2012

So it being Jan. 4th, I figured I should weigh in on last year’s happenings asap. Especially since this will all soon become irrelevant as we move on to the next big thing: 2013 and the upcoming [insert ancient culture here] apocalypse.

Here is what mattered in 2012:

3D Printers officially enter the home. Makerbot is showcased at CES 2012 and tons of “Make your own 3D Printer” kits flood Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Obviously, we are still a ways away from the replicator I envision. But what we can already see, that this tech is going to be crazy disruptive. Why buy some crappy little plastic bunny made in china when you can print one in your own home?

Webseries explosion. Every one and their dog made a webseries this year. Hell, I made one too! And despite the deluge of series, I was able to find a bunch that I totally feel in love with. You can see the initial list here. I would add The Bar Series and The Slope to my list of favs.

HTML5 is cool. I guess this isn’t a specifically 2012 phenomenon. Its a language that has been in development for ages, and has been out there for a least a couple of years. However this year, many browsers updated to support html5 elements, and we really started to get to see the potential of the language. It is set to be completed by 2014, so the next few years we should be seeing more and more of these pages. My favorite examples are Agent 8 Ball, Jess & Russ wedding proposal, Angry Birds Space site and Cloudsovercuba.com

Joss Whedon sells out, but I don’t care. The Avengers was the first 3D movie I ever saw. I realize I was a little slow checking out the whole 3d movie thing, but I was simply waiting for something worthwhile to come along. Well Joss, you made something worthwhile. Sure its got all the trappings of a bloated superhero blockbuster. But it melds entertainment with intelligence, which is no small feat. Plus the Black Widow kicked ass. See my full post about it!

Crowdfunding takes it up a notch. The passing of the JOBS act in America in April encouraged the launch of hundreds of new crowdfunding/crowd-investment platforms, and thousands of crowdfunding campaigns. While not all countries have been so fast to address the changing fundraising and investment landscape provided by crowdfunding sites, the JOBS act has at least made the whole world take notice. This year everyone tried crowdfunding, including me, to varying degrees of success. While it has its critics, it is an interesting experiment all the same. Looking forward to watching this space!

Syria experiences a civil disaster. Assad becomes a murderous leader bent on killing his own people in the most terrifying ways possible. Current estimates place the death toll above 60000 people killed. I guess that he feels his own life is on the line and so he will throw anything he’s got to stay in power, but his actions have fortified his status as a thoroughly “Bad Guy” and has made his redemption in world political circles quite impossible. Assad’s future looks dim. But the damage he does to syria as power is pulled from him is unforgivable.

Obama is back (and the worst of the crazy anti-women, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-immigrant far right Republican candidates were officially given a thumbs down by the majority of the American people). I am happy to say that our American cousins have not gone completely off the reservation. Well not just yet…

Canada’s Environmental record goes from bad to worse. Harper must go! So early in the year when the Americans balked at the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, Canada turned around and immediately offered the Canadian oil sands – one of the dirtiest of dirty oil – to China, together with a deal they could hardly refuse. It entitled a foreign country to plunder canadian resources, destroy the surrounding nature, and if canada’s environmental laws or regulation interrupts the activities of these Chinese interests, they would have the right to sue Canada. Seems like a good deal for canadians’ no? Oh and Harper’s muzzling of government scientists, preventing them from speaking to any press about their findings regarding climate change, was all over the international news this year. Well that is just the icing on evil cake, wouldn’t you say?

Facebook stock = epic fail. The hype leading up to FBs IPO only added to the glorious shadenfreude we all felt when the stock plummeted after being released. Big name investors opting out early in the game, including Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and board member, made the stock look even weaker. Even Zuckerberg admits he is disappointed. According to some estimates, it should actually go as low as 8 bucks. Do we feel bad? Absolutely not! Facebook has made a business mining its users’ personal data. Let it burn!

Instabillion: Facebook buys instagram for a billion. While this is every tech geeks fantasy, it is kinda scary how fast and how big that deal came to be. And there is something terribly sad about the fact that all those photos you took of your favorite meals, your kids first steps, your trip to Spain or your friends’ wedding are now legally under their new and improved Facebook-inspired “Privacy Agreement”, which is subject to change and will inevitably mean that one day the company will completely own your content. Its coming folks, don’t kid yourself. Google is basically cut from the same cloth, so watch your data folks and find alternatives now!!

Obviously the world is bigger than these 10 stories. Other major stories of the year: apocalypses that didn’t happen, Pinterest explosion, Egyptian election, Hurricane Sandy, Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, Greek debt crisis intensifying, Psy breaking records (why oh why??), Justin Bieber not disappearing (again why oh why??), something about olympics (yawn), SOPA protests, record meltdown of arctic ice.

Say what you will, we definitely live in interesting times.

Funded by the people, for the people

When the term crowdfunding first appeared in 2006, who could have predicted the fury of activity that this very simple concept would spark. The creative and tech industries have since embraced this emerging form of funding whole heartedly, and as a result we are witnessing a re-think of the traditional finance model. This enthusiasm for crowdfunding has also spilled into other realms, prompting its inclusion into the recent US JOBS bill.
So what is crowdfunding exactly? According to Wikipedia, crowdfunding is described as “ the collective cooperation … by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.” Put another way, you ask people within your network of friends, partners and customers to help you fund the creation of a work/company/product. In return you offer rewards such as shares in the company, special gifts or the finished product.

But the concept of crowdfunding is not particularly new. It is a long standing strategy for charity organizations to offer small rewards (such as gifts or tax refunds) to encourage many donators to contribute funds towards a central cause. Also in some sense, the stock market is a form of crowd financing.

So why the excitement?

Mainly it’s due to the incredible opportunities that emerge when crowdfunding is coupled with a highly connected network of users. If you can tap into your audience before production, then you can remove the need for a 3rd party investor at the beginning of the process. Previously unprofitable projects have all of the sudden become viable. Furthermore, since we are more connected online than ever before, there is an enormous and growing volume of potential participants. The time is right to start re-thinking finance and fundraising.

And why are so many in business paying attention? To be blunt: there is also money to be made.

The first online crowdfunding platforms was Artist Share in 2000. But since 2008, we have witnessed an explosion of new crowdfunding platforms.

Some of the best known are:

• Kickstarter (2009)- the largest funding platform for creative projects in the US, and potentially the best known of all the platforms.
• Indiegogo (2008)- the best known international funding platform, includes non-creative projects such as social campaigns and product development
• Sponsume (2010) – the biggest crowdfunding platform for creative projects in the UK & Europe”
• Rockethub (2010)- funding platform for creative projects, partnered with many larger Media companies.
• Peer backers – a popular crowd-fund “for entrepreneur, innovators and trailblazers”
• Sellaband - music website that allows artists to raise the money from their fans and the SellaBand community in order to record a professional album.

For a full list, take a look at the answers to this quora question.

These platforms are in essence bridging the gap between the creator of a product and the consumer of the product.

As a result, anyone can be a micro-investor or mini-philanthropist and anyone can be a creator or an entrepreneur. The barriers-to-entry have been lowered profoundly.

But crowdfunding is only one small aspect of the movement towards a crowd-centric marketplace. The crowd is gaining momentum, and in turn is slowly eroding the power of the financial gatekeepers, such as investment groups, financial institutes, governments and funding foundations.

For better or worse, the crowd is increasingly shaping our world and our future.