By: Co-Editor, RB:

We have covered several sites that are engaged in so-called “crowdsourcing”.

Crowdsourcing is a word that describes the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an “open call” to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions.
The term has become popular with businesses, authors, and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals.

For example, a startup we featured in February called 99designs.com is the largest marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design.

Now comes a company that can be described as “consumer crowdsourcing” or “crowdbuying”.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

Earlier this week, I wrote about a site called BookSwim.com.

BookSwim.com is just like NetFlix.com for books. Well, there is another site that is a marketplace for books. On WinWinBooks.com, you can buy, sell, negotiate, and eventual trade in books.

WinWinBooks.com, launched on October 30, 2009 and based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida bills itself as a “book buying and selling auction site.”

Its goal is to provide an alternative for everyone who is looking to buy or sell their books without compromising their wallets. The site aims to make the whole buying and selling experience simple, easy, and inexpensive

The company is ideally geared towards the student who either buy books on financial aid and then typically sells the book back to the book store for less the 1/4 of the price after the end of the semester.

The site also seeks to appeal to authors who are independent and need and new market to sell their books. The site plans on adding an application that will allow small or large publication companies to list their inventory.

In the two months since launching WinWinBooks.com has held 10 live auctions and has sold 8 items. Most categories still have no books listed, so obviously the site is still getting its legs under it.

Registration is free. You receive a confirming email upon registration. Use of the site is easy.

The site is very rough around the edges as there are numerous typos and stray characters that make the site somewhat unappealing. However, I think it is a good idea and its goals are noble. By cleaning up the site just a bit, I think they have a good  chance at  success.

By: The Editor

I think it is fair to say one of the more challenging things that entrepreneurs face when starting a new venture is locating capital. Launched in January of 2009, this Nevada based company is poised to help potentially tens of thousands of entrepreneurs.

FundingRoadmap.com states they are the first online business plan and due diligence reporting system that anyone can use to make the funding process faster, easier and more cost-effective. Now funding sources and entrepreneurs can work with a state-of-the-art multiple choice digital platform to facilitate their mutual success in the current challenging credit /investment environment.
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