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Crowdspring

How small biz uses social media (infographic)

Small businesses are becoming savvier about social media. And, increasingly, smaller-scale operations are turning to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social channels for promotions, customer acquisition, and sales leads. An impressive 75 percent of small businesses now have a presence on a social media site.

Interestingly, 27 percent of small businesses are on Facebook, while 18 percent reside on LinkedIn, and just 7 percent use Twitter. This new data comes from CrowdSpring, a Web design firm that crowdsources all of its projects and that created the splendid new infographic below.

Probably the most revealing stat here: 64 percent of Twitter … Read more

CrowdSpring leverages weasel economics

I saw CrowdSpring present at a recent Under the Radar conference I was moderating. I like the service a lot, because it simplifies the process of licensing creative works, and it levels the playing field so anyone can play. What it does, in a nutshell, is let people who need design work done put their requests up on the site. Then creatives compete for the jobs.

It sounds familiar, doesn't it -- like TaskMarket, Elance, and other task boards?

It's not. CrowdSpring has a radically different cashflow model. It works like this: If there's a job you … Read more

Under the Radar: Your data (and life) in the cloud

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The second to the last group rounding up Tuesday's presentations at the Under the Radar conference comes from all walks of Web services. There's a tool to post your baby photos, one to have artists and creative types scramble to create something for you, an upcoming video channel surfing app, and one that organizes all your files online and off.

CrowdSpring, a start-up we listed as one to watch, is a marketplace for creative ideas. The site lets you put out a project and get it crowd-sourced. The winner gets cash and potentially a job … Read more