Crowdfunding … sure, you’ve heard of it, but have you heard that it’s working? Almost half (46 percent) of funds seekers on Kickstarter.com in 2011 actually convinced people—primarily perfect strangers—to pay for their creative endeavors. Kickstarter raised just under $100 million in pledges last year, bringing to fruition 12,000 projects, primarily in film, music, design and art. The trend has fans in Washington, too. The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, a bill supporting equity-based crowdfunding for startups, was recently passed with an assist from the Obama administration. While that news is certainly promising, the chatter about crowdfunding remains mainly of the arts-related sort. To wit, producers of Stromberg, the German adaptation of America’s The Office, raised $1.3 million in a week to fund a film version of their sitcom, following in the footsteps of Germany’s adult-themed film Hotel Desire, which was released for download after a successful crowdfunding and triumphant theater premiere. And then there’s London filmmaker Chris Riley, who’s turned to crowdfunding site Indiegogo.com to raise money to release a DVD and Blu-Ray version of his documentary, First Orbit, a year after premiering the full-length film on YouTube. Those pledging money to Riley will get film credits in return. Such incentives—shout-outs, apparel, trips, tech gadgets—are paying off for crowdfunders. Leading one to wonder: What’s the virtual equivalent of a T-shirt gun?

Since last fall, when millions of BlackBerry owners were unable to send or receive emails or messages for several days, the drone of negative buzz surrounding Research in Motion (RIM) has grown to a roar. The cries of detractors reached such a fevered pitch that co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis recently stepped down, in part to demonstrate to shareholders that they heard the noise and were taking action. The widespread outage was just the latest blow to the reputation of the company, which has seen its market share slip in a long-running battle with Apple and Google Android devices. But here’s the thing: Amid cries that RIM is losing the race (and with stock prices slipping), there are multiple signs that point, actually, to the company’s strength and survival. The U.S. market is currently where things seem most dire for RIM, but look at global markets and you’ll see a different picture: In Saudi Arabia, RIM had the top-selling smartphone for 12 consecutive months in 2010-2011; and the number of BlackBerries in Nigeria has risen to 2.4 million, more than double the number of 925,000 from a year earlier. In other words, the brand has global legs. Additionally, in a recent poll BlackBerry came out on top as the most-trusted smartphone in terms of data security. In fact, some are advising RIM to refocus on its core corporate constituents and shore up its standings based on its rock-solid rep. Now, that’s a rebranding campaign that could get some trackballs rolling.

With the grand opening of Le Huffington Post creating waves around the Web (Arianna Huffington made the provocative choice of Anne Sinclair, journo wife of embattled ex–IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to oversee it), it seems an opportune time to look at other businesses making an entrée into Français. In the fall, not one but two e-readers entered the French market: the U.S. giant Amazon Kindle and its Canadian competitor Kobo. Amazon claims its new venture is the largest digital bookstore in France; Kobo execs are presumably building on their success by continuing a global push. More recently, mobile-technology producer QuickLogic announced plans to jump into international waters with a deal for a sales presence in Paris and southeastern France. Buzzed-about startup Eventbrite is planning to offer its party-planning prowess to Parisians in the near future. And, interestingly, the company Technicolor has just purchased some assets from a French film firm Quinta Industries. Now, that’s certainly something we don’t see too often—the U.S. impacting French cinema.

After watching waistlines expand throughout the U.S. and France over the past three decades, we warned that 2012 would be the year that global “fat phobia” takes hold. That’s not an altogether bad thing: Our hyper-awareness, even fear, of flab may have finally slowed its spread in the U.S., where obesity rates appear to be stabilizing at last. Childhood obesity gets the bulk of the focus—with plenty of ire targeted at school vending machines—but one new study reveals no link between junk food in schools and obesity. In fact, among American students, the rate of obese children between fifth and eighth grade has fallen by 4 percent. One of the more depressing things we’ve read: Some scientists believe that once a person becomes overweight it is nearly impossible for that person to reach a normal BMI and, more importantly, to stay there. Blame Paula Deen all you want, but this problem looks to be less about biscuits and more about hormones; some of us have the skinny ones and some of us the chubby ones. Still another study indicates that our personality traits impact our BMI—with those who score high on neuroticism and impulsivity and low on conscientiousness, organization and discipline most likely to be overweight. Insomniacs and other sleep-deprived people are also more prone to pudge, as they’re deficient in the leptin hormone, which signals fullness. All this extra weight isn’t just putting pressure on our hearts but on our psyches, too. Body image anxiety has long affected women, but now may actually plague more men than women, if a recent British study is to be believed. Excuse us while we dig out our gym membership card …

Coughing up the password to an email address or social media site is the newest test of young love. With this top-secret data in hand, modern high school sweethearts scour one another’s exchanges for clues about faithfulness—often storing ammunition for post-breakup warfare while they’re at it. Adults, too, grapple with the issue of disclosing passwords to a romantic partner. Hint: email, Facebook and AIM passwords should always remain private, though it might be okay to share Netflix, cell phone and computer passwords (unless you want to be thought completely paranoid, in which case the relationship is doomed anyhow). But take heed of this warning: “if a fling is asking for your password to begin with, it’s probably time for them to be flung away.” The easiest way to grant a partner access to some but not all of your passwords is to use different ones for each account. If that sounds like too much effort, there’s a new app to help you keep track of so many log-ins; one will store and encrypt all of your bank account, credit card and log-in data, even suggesting optimum passwords so that you don’t find yours glaring back at you from the 22 Worst Passwords list. And Google has launched a “digital literacy” campaign called “Good to Know,” aimed at steering us away from common privacy pitfalls. Some of the recommendations: two-factor authentication, unique passwords for all important accounts, long passwords (at least 10 characters) and a mix of capital and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. In other words, make your password so baffling that your significant other won’t even want to remember it.

Not so long ago, the founders of Fab.com were glumly coming to grips with the public’s apathy toward Fabulis, their first online effort. But instead of tucking their tails between their legs, the men went on to create a serious success story with Fab.com (which saw 175,000 users and $60,000 in sales on the very day it launched—and is now at 1.7 million members and nearly $50 mil in venture financing). This particular brand of reinvention is known in Silicon Valley as “pivoting,” and it’s a valuable tactic for tech startups that falter at the start. Exhibits A, B and C: Flickr, once a feature of an online game; PayPal, a company focused originally on transferring money between hand-held digital assistants; and Turntable.fm, whose owners began by making bar-code stickers that could be scanned with a mobile phone. And in September, New York–based startup Aviary introduced a free suite of photo-editing tools, now applied to 10 million photos a month—this from the company that years ago launched an ill-fated Flash-based Web editor. The key, experts say, is for startups to stay grounded in what they learned the first go-round. It’s recommended that startups cut their losses and pivot sooner rather than later, but even big companies change course. Look to Dell Computers, whose founding CEO, Michael Dell, reclaimed his position there in 2007 and set about making over the floundering company, turning it from low-margin vendor of PCs into a viable player in the higher-margin arenas of corporate technology. Reinvention is rampant these days, as longer life spans mean more time for second acts and a shakier job market means greater need to look for second careers. In other words, a little pivot never hurt anyone.

Newly single Ashton Kutcher tweeted about sleeping over with a girlfriend; the Huffington Post tweeted its affection for the New York Post; “Modern Family”’s Eric Stonestreet tweeted about miracle diet pills; and singer Nicole Scherzinger tweeted her support of Ron Paul, as did bands No Doubt and Rise Against. If any of these tweets left you scratching your head, it’s because all of them were the result of Twitter-account hacking. After reclaiming his Twitter handle, Kutcher let it be known: “OK Mr. Hacker, you only made one mistake. You hacked my Foursquare and I now know your address. Whoops … This is gonna be fun.” Companies, too, are feeling protective as usurpers find ways to hijack their social media sites. Modernist Cuisine’s Twitter appeared to extoll the virtues of acai berries before its curator, Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer, removed the tweet this week. If even such a renowned tech guru can be Twitter-jacked, are any of our tweets safe? Yes, especially if we avoid clicking on suspicious links offering free gadgets or hilarious videos. “Social spam” is the most common way for a hacker to accomplish a Twitter takeover—think something along the lines of “Hey, check out this link! FREE IPAD!”—but it’s being weeded away by Twitter’s team of five “spam scientists.” These programmers have been tasked with decreasing the site’s percentage of spammy messages, currently at 1.5 percent (down from 11 percent in 2009). Celebrities may be fuming, but the rest of us can breathe a sigh of relief.

Always a hot topic, the problem of insomnia factored heavily in our 2011 American Audit—it turns out people are carrying the problems of their days into their (sleepless and worry-filled) nights. In the U.K., too, one in three is plagued by sleep problems, now the most widely reported mental disorder. Mothers, it seems, are particularly vulnerable to slumber issues these days. They’re sleep deprived and stretched thin, and shockingly the hungry, howling baby at 3 a.m. is not to blame. Instead, even mothers of older children find they need to pacify themselves with sleep medication (over and under the counter) or anxiety pills, hushing their minds long enough to nod off. Among the drugs of choice: Ambien, Lunesta, Xanax, Tylenol P.M. and melatonin. Three out of 10 American women say they use a sleep aid at least a few nights a week. And in spite of the negative press associated with sleep medications (Conrad Murray’s talked-about trial for Michael Jackson’s death closely examined the dosage of sleep-inducing Propofol), most women choose a decent snooze, albeit artificially induced, over a sleepless night. Many find the consequences of sleeplessness more nightmarish: A Norwegian study ties poor sleep to chronic pain in women, while another study links it to Type 2 diabetes. Oh, great—one more thing to lose sleep over.

Might Millennials be the most perplexing—and intriguing—demographic group ever? Made up of 18- to 34-year-olds, they’re bound by few commonalities; one being a fondness for social media and another, an overarching fear of commitment. This commitment issue is big news these days, as scorned bosses, lovers and advertisers everywhere ponder what went wrong. Some of the most common things Gen Y is avoiding like the plague: car ownership, parenthood and steady jobs (70 percent of Millennials leave their first job within two years, and the same percentage has admitted to regularly breaking HR policy). One hiring expert says this is because Millennials expect loyalty from their employer (whereas Boomers give loyalty). Against all odds, Millennials in Australia are actually the most likely to buy property in the next two years—perhaps the biggest commitment one can make, outside of a walk down the aisle. Speaking of … marriage is yet another thing to which fewer Millennials are committing; a quarter of them have also shunned any religious affiliation. At least one psychologist attributes Gen Y’s commitment phobia to its Baby Boomer “helicopter parents,” over-protective types whose behavior has left their children dodging obligations to avoid failure. Meanwhile, Generation X finally sees the upside of being neglected.

Biking: a boon to the environment or urban nuisance on wheels? It depends on whom you ask. Turns out that the growing number of bicyclists in cities around the world are subject to a bit of a backlash—call it a “backpedal.” And nowhere are the complaints more loudly heard than in New York City (natch). In the Big Apple, bikers have called a “faddist minority” and an “entitled, imperial cabal.” (Come on NYC anti-bicyclists, tell us what you really think.) But Manhattan isn’t the only city with cycling conflict. Among the carpers’ complaints are the two-wheelers’ sudden ubiquity, their threat to walkers, the cost and confusion of bike lanes—and their propensity to breeze through red lights. To be fair to riders, the anger may be partly inspired by
the gentrification these cyclists seem to symbolize, as young, educated and active people infiltrate U.S. cities like Philadelphia, Boston, D.C. and Chicago—where cycling has soared in popularity in the past decade. London and Cambridge have seen serious boosts in cycle use as well; the Dutch now take 28 percent of their trips by bicycle; and in Australia, cycling’s popularity has grown every year for the past four. But reckless cyclists aren’t helping this group win popularity contests, either—more than 4,000 New Yorkers were hospitalized after being hit by a bike from 2007 to 2010, and a new new U.K. report reveals that cyclist deaths are up 7 percent (though there’s no word on how many collisions were the cyclists’ fault). New York’s City Council Transportation Committee has announced tough new policies for cyclists—holding them to many of the same rules as car drivers. And recently Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn made a case for cutting public funding for bike paths, while House Majority Leader Eric Cantor proposed spending cuts for a bike-sharing program in D.C. Clearly, this calls for a marketing campaign to be rolled out—who’s got Ed Begley Jr. on speed dial?