The story about the kid in LA who constructed an arcade in his dad's garage has many buzzing about a new use of social media: crowd-funding. Since the story broke following a filmaker's capture of the story, more than $150K has been contributed to the kid's college fund.
I would opine that crowd-funding is another form of American Idol philanthropy. American Idol philanthropy, often corporate organized (e.g. the pepsi challenge grant program), is dependent on the "what strikes me at the moment" disposition of a random albeit somewhat homogenous group, that is, that portion of the population which is watching or surfing or reading. Crowd-funding is not much different from this approach to fundraising only way less organized, or at least that's what it appears to be.
To date, effective use of social media for fundraising purposes has been relatively well structured, targeted and appropriately "selling" what is believed to be in the "target's" interest. This is as it should be. The question for crowd-funding as a method: can this too be highly organized? The answer: why not?
Here's a Christian Science Monitor article that talks about this "event" and the so-what.