Page 26 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014process and its results. Amongst them we could cite some of the most popular, such as Kickstarter in English‐speaking countries and Goteo and Verkami in Spain.Just as we find major examples of crowdsourcing campaigns on the idea of innovation that is open and closely linked to large companies in which the problem is not financing, but rather gathering information from, or strengthening links with, the customers, crowdfunding is consubstantial with projects that emanate from small companies, groups or individuals who wish to develop an idea but do not have the necessary resources to do so.Here the sharing of tasks is not so critical. The main thing is to contribute to the incubation of the project and to its sustainability in order to make it a reality. Hence, while in the case of the former, the tendency of crowdsourcing as open innovation, the projects tend to be top to bottom, more corporative and institutional, seeking enrichment and diversity in the dedication of volunteers, in the latter case of crowdfunding the projects are bottom to top, more related with social settings where the benefits are not usually financial, that incorporate a tradition of self‐financing and which furthermore are suffering from the reduction of public funding: cultural, scientific, environmental, educational, etc. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of the projects we find on Kickstarter, Verkami and Goteo are of this sort.According to a study by Infocrowdsourcing, the amount obtained in 2012 from crowdfunding in Spain was 9.7 million euros. Furthermore, in the field that concerns us here, of the 62 platforms identified in Spain and y Latin America, 16% are devoted to solidarity projects, 13% to artistic projects, 10% to musical and 5% to scientific ones.It is a sign of the maturity of the system that three out of four crowdfunding projects raise the amount requested. An analysis of activity on Verkami in 20122 indicated that 75.3% of campaigns launched on the platform attained their financing aims. In the sphere of culture, the sectors with the highestAC/Esuccess rates were publishing projects in first place, followed by musical and thirdly social ones.It is also interesting to note that the amount of money requested for projects is inversely related to their success rate, so that projects whose target amount is greater than €5,000 to €10,000 have more chance of achieving it than those with lower targets.There is no better way to get an overview of the growth of this practice than to browse through the crowdfunding platforms of Performing Arts, Dance, Theater, Publishing, Music, Photography, Film, Design, Art, Comics, Science and Craft to discover the hundreds of projects that are cofinanced on microdonations.Crowdfunding springs from small companies, collectives or private individuals who are seeking the financial resources to bring an idea to fruitionIt is surprising tolook at thefigures for theprojects thathave raisedmost money. OnKickstarter, inthe USA, we findamounts ranging from the $600,000 raised by artist Marina Abramovic for her Institute and the $175,000 raised to conserve a classic cinema, or the more than $45,000 raised for a dance performance. In Spain the numbers are more modest, but there are still examples from the performing arts, such as the home performance by Latung La La with €14,000, the more than €40,000 for the concert #Primaveravalenciana, the €50,000 for the comic Brigada, the €60,000 for the scientific submarine ICTINEU 3 and the record €350,000 raised for the documentary L'Endemà (The Day After).COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTIONAS A FORM OF CULTUREThe culture of participation also modifies how we buy, eat and travel, to the point of making “collaborative consumption” a cultural form in itself.WHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 2: CROWDSOURCING: SHARED CULTURE CURRENT PAGE...26