How much time do people spend on Social Network Services(SNS)? Recently, as smartphones have become more popular, many people come into contact with SNS more easily than in the past. Although many problems related to SNS addiction are occurring, there are people who get things they want by using SNS actively. By using crowdfunding, poor artists or social activists are able to make their creativity projects or social public interest projects a reality.
  Crowdfunding means collecting funds from the public, and the term is the combination of the words ‘crowd’ and ‘funding’, which mean ‘mob’ and ‘financing’, each. In other words, it is a method of investing that gets money from groups of people by using social media or internet media actively. Although it is mainly used for cultural goods like music or movies, it is not limited to those. Crowdfunding originated in 1997 when a UK rock group called ‘Marillion’ collected more than 60,000 dollars in a touring performance in the USA by accepting American fans’ internet fund-raising, and it was mainly for donating for the activities of poor artists.
  Among many overseas examples of crowdfunding, we can select the subaqueous drone named ‘Open Road Trident’ from Kickstarter in the USA. This project got about 8 million dollars, which is more than 16 times the original target of 50,000 dollars. There are many reasons why this project gained success, but we can highlight that they uploaded a video of the subaqueous drone. In this video, two people introduced their product and tried to communicate with the public. In other words, we can think that the success or failure of crowdfunding depends on how the fund-raising people communicated with many people. On February 17, in the LG social fund delivery ceremony that was held in the Administration and Flight Center of Korea National University of Transportation, a team named ‘Tatoo’, which is composed of students from the Chungbuk National University Urban Engineering Department, received the Minister of Environment’s prize. They were awarded by suggesting the idea of a public bike system through crowdfunding.
  Thus, there are many people who realize their dreams by using SNS actively. Anybody whose idea can get the empathy of the public and can contribute to social evolution can challenge their dreams through crowdfunding. If you use SNS not just for fun with friends but for productive purposes, you can achieve the things you want.

By Lee Seong-ho
shl36@cbnu.ac.kr