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Crowdfunding has become the life blood for many startups, entrepreneurs and creative types. It not only serves to fund a project, it’s an amazing venue for validation, marketing and customer development.

When submitting an idea to sites like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or 33needs, you open your idea up to feedback and criticism, but also create a channel for early message development and customer acquisition.

But you already knew that, right?

Did you know crowdfunding is likely to become regulated under securities law?

There are two different bills being floated in the House and Senate. But, each will broaden the permissible funding activity allowed through crowdfunders!

For now, as long as you’re just giving away products and not equity in exchange for donor investments, you are fine. But, you’ll want to keep an eye out for changes that will likely be coming around the corner soon.

From VentureBeat
H.R. 2930 Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

On November 3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2930 (the “Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act”), a crowdfunding bill that will allow startups to offer and sell securities via crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, as well as social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

S. 1791 Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011

On November 2nd Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts introduced S.1791 (the “Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011”), which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. A hearing was held by such committee on December 1 with respect to a number of pieces of capital formation legislation, including crowdfunding.

Are you on Twitter? As a journalist, freelance writer or editor, Twitter is the place to be. It has become like a toll-free, express lane for news. That said,it can also be a time suck if used without a strategy and purpose.

For those needing a refresher: The ‘microblogging’ tool allows users to communicate in 140 characters. It’s like texting, but instead of connecting with people in your phone book, users have access to the millions of people around the Internet. It has been one of the most widely used news and social media tools, in the world!

Whether you have been using Twitter for some time, or are preparing to send out your first tweet, there are a few things you want think about, which are just as basic and important as the Who, What, When, Where and Why of traditional journalism.

Following are a few slides from a presentation I conducted this Spring in Chicago to give you something to think about when using Twitter (and related management tools like TweetDeck, Twitterrific and HootSuite) more efficiently and with a purpose.

The beauty of iPhone (and iPad) apps is that in addition to providing some utility, they can be used to provide proof points of a brand’s ‘green’ credentials AND position a business or service that was previously unknown.

I will be writing more on this topic in the near future, but in the meantime, I’ll just show you what I’ve found.

From systemizing and tracking recycling to home energy audits and carbon tracking… here is a great list of free iPhone apps to help users reduce waste, reduce their carbon footprint and maybe even save a little money… from Behind the Green Scene!