Crowdfunding is a byproduct of Web 2.0. Crowdfunding is when people use the internet to contribute to causes they want.
GoFundMe is a website that was specifically designed for crowdfunding. Someone can set up a campaign for a cause that they want to help and people can donate as much or as little to the fund as they want.
When it comes to mental health, crowdfunding can be invaluable. Take a look at this project on GoFundMe. To date, Katie has raised around $3,500 toward her mental health treatment and Master's degree to help other people with mental illness.
This is related to the topics of previous weeks, such as social and financial capital. By using crowdfunding, Katie is increasing her social capital by putting her goals on the internet for all to see, colleagues, potential investors, or just friends who are in a similar situation as she is. She is increasing her financial capital by raising money.
Crowdsourcing is when people make media assets themselves, be it stock photos, stock videos, music, etc, and then post in on websites such as iStockPhoto for other people to either download for free or pay for a greatly reduced price as compared to something like Getty Images. Some websites, such as PublicDomainPictures, also has images that you can use for totally free and you don't even have to attribute their creator. There are other licenses, such as the Creative Commons license, where you don't have to pay for them, but there are varying degrees of attribution and other rules, such as distributing under the same license, and mandatory remixing of content.
For example, if a startup company, say one that focuses on helping anorexic people recover, had limited financial capital, they could make an (almost) free website by self-hosting Wordpress, and then using stock photos and videos as their featured images or videos.
Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are invaluable for people who do not have a lot of money and ned help. They are one of the positive byproducts of Web 2.0.
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