Saturday, 8 March 2014

Contemporary Issues in International Finance 1 - crowdfunding class case based analysis


Contemporary Issues in International Finance 1

-          Class Case (Kick Starter) based analysis

General knowledge introduction

Kickstarter is a Crowd Funding platform which is stated mission is to help bring creative projects to life. People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards and special experiences in exchange for their pledges (Kickstarter, n.d.).

Crowdfunding  is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.).

After Kickstarter lauched in 2009, there is a furious debating on that website as it seems to be illegality funding with high success project’s rate. On the one hand, the New York Times (2011) called Kickstarter "the people's NEA" as well as the Time named it one of the "Best Inventions of 2010" and "Best Websites of 2011" (McCracken, 2011). Other other hand, as the high subscribe rate in Kickstarter, some projects may exceed 100 thousands people to invest it which become the typical irregular funding case. Moreover, as Kickstarter  is different from P2P pattern which has been control by current laws, Kickstarter is  exceed the all of exemption regulation in America. However, in America, the Crowdfunding situation has been efficient control since Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act regulation has been signed in 2012 (Goins & Little, 2014). After its specific regulation has been set up, Crowdfunding are generally turned into a normal and regular pattern in current financial market.

Class case reflection

Based on previous brief introduction and regular analysis on crowdfunding, some further ideas related to crowdfunding based on Kickstarter case are got after class study. In the international finance and financial management seminar, we have been separated into four teams and create our projects to crowdfunding from other classmates. Four teams would be generally classified to 4 types of projects: innovation technology, computer games, electric project, shoes creation project. First of all, after comparing with four projects, there is another regular could be found around this area. In the seminar, an innovation technology project related to translation is the most popularity project in that class. Moreover, it could be found that, the more life related projects win more investors’ attention.  Then, although, according to Kickstarter (2014), it seems that most of projects in Kickstarter are related to arts, such as: films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games and food-related projects. From the class projects, it seems that some projects related to computer and high technology could be the primary elements of crowdfunding.  However, this kind of structure basis of crowdfunding may increasing to risk impact of crowfunding and lead financial crisis. According to Galbraith and Hale (2004), there is a typical risk could be found in technology based company which called ‘the dot-com bubble’.  It seems that the value rise of technological corporations is rapidly, but it maintain high risk and would lead to financial crisis. For example, the collapse of the bubble took place during 1999-2001. In that period, some corporations like Pets com is completely failed, some corporations like Cisco has declined lots of value but remain stable and profitable as well as some corporations like Amazon.com has reduced  a lot but recovery and exceed several years later. Then, combining with the crowdfunding risk on trust security, the high risk of technology project in crowdfunding should be challenged, highly paid attentions and  study in following financial study.

 

 

 

References:

Galbraith, J., & Hale, T. (2004). Income distribution and the information technology bubble.

Goins, T., & Little, E. (2014). Crowdfunding. Investment Lawyer, 21(1), 3-7.

Kickstarter,. (2014). One Billion Dollars. Retrieved 16 March 2014, from https://www.kickstarter.com/1billion?ref=promo&ref=PromoNewsletterMar0314

Oxford dictionaries,. (n.d.). crowdfunding: definition of crowdfunding in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). Retrieved 16 March 2014, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/crowdfunding

McCracken, H. (2011). I just discovered Kickstarter on TIME's list of Best Websites. Explore it and more must-see sites on TIME.com. TIME. Retrieved 16 March 2014, from http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2087815_2088176_2088182,00.html

WALKER, R. (2011). Log In - The New York Times. Nytimes. Retrieved 16 March 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/the-trivialities-and-transcendence-of-kickstarter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

 

 

 

 

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