Crowd-Sourcing: The New Angel Investor

Related Links New York City Venture Capital Is Not Dead! Venture Capitalists Have Their Worst Quarter Since 1999 Venture Capitalists Rush For the Doors More From Business Insider »

• Kickstarter: artists and designers raise funding for specific projects from multiple donations.
  
• Spot.us: Filmmakers and reporters pitch the public on their favorite story ideas then report on them using multiple donations. Though this will not save the newspaper industry we still found it an interesting attempt to get the public to pay for quality investigative reporting, which struggling newspapers are having difficulty paying for at the moment.
  
• Sellaband: Bands fund the recording of their albums from multiple individual investors who then share in any profits down the road. We're guessing this may actually turn out to be good for record labels since many of these bands will likely use their initial release to pitch independent and major record labels on record deals.
  
• Contenture: Users pay a monthly fee and Contenture-member sites share in the revenue when users visit their sites.

Crowd-sourcing likely won't revolutionize the entrepreneurial/venture industry, but we wouldn't be surprised if more resourceful entrepreneurs start turning to similar methods.

Via