BountyUp fees will be going up shortly, to 2.5% on charitable bounties and 5.0% on standard bounties. (Current fees are 0.5% charitable / 2.0% standard). While a seemingly big jump, this still keeps us way below other comparable sites (look at eBay or eLance’s prices, for instance), and it’ll give us the luxury of investing a lot of time and attention in supporting each bounty, especially in their infancy.

As always, feel free to drop me a line with any questions or comments (assuming you’re too shy to simply post them here.)

In other words, I’m soliciting constructive criticism. For the most part, I’ll be excerpting the more analytical, expository bits. The places in which I make arguments to which some, perhaps many, will take exception. At least I hope that’s the case. Today’s a bit more of a lark: A story.

Jeff Howe is soliciting feedback in advance of the release of his new book (titled, aptly enough, “Crowdsourcing”). I’m a little disappointed by his description of the structure of the book - he’s chosen to focus on what, in my mind, is a fairly narrow view of the “power of the crowd”, specifically around amateurism. This is ignoring entirely the power of projects such as Idea Crossing and Innocentive, which focus on crowdsourcing the most qualified experts, as well as the range of crowdfunding activities (ChipIn, BountyUp, Crowdfunder, etc.)

But the quality of his prose is fantastic, and he’s really captured the “insider’s feel”. What’s ironic is that, as he tells it, successful crowdsourcing always focuses on a strong sense of community, of belonging - which is not the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “crowd”. Maybe he should have called it tribesourcing instead.

Tags: crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, bountyup, jeffhowe, tribesourcing

There’s a lot going on in the crowdfunding / crowdsourcing world, from our very own “One Human Family” recording bounty, to a cutting edge british filmmaker who’s using the ideas (and the cash) of his fans to produce a feature film - which he’ll then give away under a Creative Commons license.

Check it out: http://aSwarmOfAngels.com/ .

If you’ve been using the passion of your fans to drive forward your own creative projects, why not share your story with us, by leaving a comment below.

Tags: crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, fanfunding, filmmaking, bountyup