Integrated and Transactional Platforms

In recent years, crowdsourcing has increased in popularity as a method for gathering ideas for new innovations and providing solutions to existing problems. In this chapter, crowdsourcing intermediaries and business models are analyzed. How intermediaries' providers are managing interactions between different groups of platform actors (contributors) in order to receive new ideas, feedback, and solutions for improving consumers products and services is studied. Crowdfunding platforms are discussed based on crowdsourcing open innovation vision. Hence, research focuses on crowdfunding innovations for alternative financial services. The chapter aims to collect and analyze quality data regarding the current status and prospective evolution of crowdfunding. The study offers classification and examination of the current status of crowdfunding and proposes a definition of the crowdfunding multi-sided platform, develops research framework for crowdfunding platform comparison and business model analysis. The results of this chapter reveal benefits but also practical challenges to overcome before innovation crowdsourcing and crowdfunding intermediaries can be effectively utilized.