Tomorrow a Kickstarter.com project entitled "Finding Vivian Maier" - a feature length documentary with a pre-production funding target of $20,000 will have overreached its target with a culm of $104,207 as of this posting. What makes "Finding Vivian Maier" - a feature length documentary film such a winner...Well the answer is in the authenticity of the project and most of all the person the film is ultimately about. Vivian Maier nanny and street photographer who caught history in time and asked for nothing in return will unfold in this feature length documentary and take her humble place in the pantheon of undiscovered talent while alive, only to become globally famous upon her death and with the discovery of her pictures a truly amazing story will finally be told thanks to John Maloof, Anthony Rydzon, and award-winning Danish documentary film maker, Lars Mortensen.
Showing posts with label kickstarter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kickstarter. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Crowdfunding Cuts Out (Most Of) The Middlemen Categories: That's What Fans Are For
by WHITNEY BLAIR WYCKOFF NPR
For musician Anthony Cekay, a venture into the world of crowdfunding started with a poem.
A friend challenged Cekay, who double-majored in English and music in college, to write a poem that humanized the devil. From Cekay's poem grew a series of poems; the poems evolved into a melody; and that melody developed into an eight-hour piece of music, "The Spectacular War Museum."
Cekay was invited to present the piece in vignettes at a New York venue, but he wanted to offer an experience that went beyond a traditional performance: He wanted to stream his shows and have a jazz blogger offer a running commentary throughout. The problem was that the venue, while supportive of the project, didn't have the capital he needed to back the whole thing.
So, Cekay turned to the crowdfunding site RocketHub and raised $2,500 to pay for equipment, 20 musicians and tech support.
"We brought in well over 600 people both live and watching the performances recorded," Cekay says. "And that just wouldn't have been possible to do online without the crowdfunding element."
RocketHub is one of several crowdfunding sites burgeoning on the Internet that allow musicians — and other creative-types like filmmakers, writers and painters — to enact a kind of grassroots campaign online to earn money to fund their ideas. It may help musicians to get a career boost or pursue a nontraditional project, but it also allows fans to interact with musicians in a unique way.
For one thing, fans who contribute get a tangible reward from the artists. Cekay says his "fuelers" had a level of involvement that went beyond seeing one of his shows. Depending on how much money someone contributed, that person would receive a highlights DVD, mp3s or a books of poetry that inspired the music.
Isaiah Singer
Anthony Cekay's cousin Christopher Allen, who fueled Cekay's project, with Anthony Cekay and Brain Meece. Allen won a t-shirt in a raffle Cekay held each week to fuel the project.
Yancey Strickler, a co-founder of a crowdfunding site called Kickstarter, says crowdfunding is a business model that lies somewhere between commerce and patronage. Musicians get funding, but fans get something too: They get access.
"People like knowing where something is coming from and what the process has been to get there, and it gives you [as a consumer] an opportunity to be involved in a way that you never would otherwise," Strickler says.
The idea of selling seats to the creative process is nothing new. In fact, Brian Meece, a co-creator of RocketHub, says crowdfunding is a throwback — a throw way back.
"We sometimes say Beethoven-plus-social-media equals crowdfunding," he says. "Because back in Beethoven's day, he had patrons basically give him financial contributions so he could continue his work. And that's how he got paid."
The difference is that instead a handful of patrons funding an artist, crowdfunding has allowed more people to play that role. But despite the success that some artists have seen using crowdfunding, music researchers say it's not a replacement for the traditional record companies.
"I think the crowdfunding aspect is interesting, but shouldn't be overestimated," says Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director of Forrester Research.
There are practical obstacles. Crowdfunding can't do the dirty work that many musicians either can't, or flat-out don't want to do — things that a label might take care of, like marketing, promotions and distribution. In other words, it can help you buy a van for a tour, but it can't book your shows for you.
As Kristin Thomson, a consultant for the Future of Music Coalition, says, marketing through crowdfunding takes a certain kind of creativity — and an already-existing rolodex or fan base. It's difficult trying to build a fan base while you're trying to get people to financially support you, she says.
"Ultimately, a band wants to be out — playing music, writing music, performing," Mulligan says. "They don't want to be marketing and promoting."
Mulligan says that crowdfunding may resonate with certain types of artists, but for the mainstream, it's a means to an end: a stepping stone to a record label — or a life after one.
To Learn More Click Here
For musician Anthony Cekay, a venture into the world of crowdfunding started with a poem.
A friend challenged Cekay, who double-majored in English and music in college, to write a poem that humanized the devil. From Cekay's poem grew a series of poems; the poems evolved into a melody; and that melody developed into an eight-hour piece of music, "The Spectacular War Museum."
Cekay was invited to present the piece in vignettes at a New York venue, but he wanted to offer an experience that went beyond a traditional performance: He wanted to stream his shows and have a jazz blogger offer a running commentary throughout. The problem was that the venue, while supportive of the project, didn't have the capital he needed to back the whole thing.
So, Cekay turned to the crowdfunding site RocketHub and raised $2,500 to pay for equipment, 20 musicians and tech support.
"We brought in well over 600 people both live and watching the performances recorded," Cekay says. "And that just wouldn't have been possible to do online without the crowdfunding element."
RocketHub is one of several crowdfunding sites burgeoning on the Internet that allow musicians — and other creative-types like filmmakers, writers and painters — to enact a kind of grassroots campaign online to earn money to fund their ideas. It may help musicians to get a career boost or pursue a nontraditional project, but it also allows fans to interact with musicians in a unique way.
For one thing, fans who contribute get a tangible reward from the artists. Cekay says his "fuelers" had a level of involvement that went beyond seeing one of his shows. Depending on how much money someone contributed, that person would receive a highlights DVD, mp3s or a books of poetry that inspired the music.
Isaiah Singer
Anthony Cekay's cousin Christopher Allen, who fueled Cekay's project, with Anthony Cekay and Brain Meece. Allen won a t-shirt in a raffle Cekay held each week to fuel the project.
Yancey Strickler, a co-founder of a crowdfunding site called Kickstarter, says crowdfunding is a business model that lies somewhere between commerce and patronage. Musicians get funding, but fans get something too: They get access.
"People like knowing where something is coming from and what the process has been to get there, and it gives you [as a consumer] an opportunity to be involved in a way that you never would otherwise," Strickler says.
The idea of selling seats to the creative process is nothing new. In fact, Brian Meece, a co-creator of RocketHub, says crowdfunding is a throwback — a throw way back.
"We sometimes say Beethoven-plus-social-media equals crowdfunding," he says. "Because back in Beethoven's day, he had patrons basically give him financial contributions so he could continue his work. And that's how he got paid."
The difference is that instead a handful of patrons funding an artist, crowdfunding has allowed more people to play that role. But despite the success that some artists have seen using crowdfunding, music researchers say it's not a replacement for the traditional record companies.
"I think the crowdfunding aspect is interesting, but shouldn't be overestimated," says Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director of Forrester Research.
There are practical obstacles. Crowdfunding can't do the dirty work that many musicians either can't, or flat-out don't want to do — things that a label might take care of, like marketing, promotions and distribution. In other words, it can help you buy a van for a tour, but it can't book your shows for you.
As Kristin Thomson, a consultant for the Future of Music Coalition, says, marketing through crowdfunding takes a certain kind of creativity — and an already-existing rolodex or fan base. It's difficult trying to build a fan base while you're trying to get people to financially support you, she says.
"Ultimately, a band wants to be out — playing music, writing music, performing," Mulligan says. "They don't want to be marketing and promoting."
Mulligan says that crowdfunding may resonate with certain types of artists, but for the mainstream, it's a means to an end: a stepping stone to a record label — or a life after one.
To Learn More Click Here
Monday, February 21, 2011
Kickstarter Crowd-funding Hits $1,000,000 A Week
By Ryan Kim - Gigaom - Feb. 18, 2011, 1:00pm PT
Coming up on its two-year-anniversary, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler is struck by how little the site has changed. Maybe the biggest difference has been just how many artists and creative types have flocked to the crowd-funding site, helping validate a new form of fundraising that is opening the eyes of not only artists but technology leaders.
New York-based Kickstarter, which launched in April 2009, began with the promise of creating an intersection between patronage and commerce, where artists could enlist the help of supporters, who would in turn pledge their money and help validate the artist’s project. What began as a small endeavor has blossomed into a sizable business, one that now raises $1 million a week in pledges and has hit $35 million pledged overall. So far, Kickstarter has helped 5,000 projects get funded with about 2,500 actively fundraising at the moment. About 250 to 300 new proposals come in a day, hoping to appeal to a pool of supporters of more than 600,000 people. Strickler said the concept for Kickstarter, first conceived by co-founder Perry Chen, has proven to be a powerful tool in helping ideas bloom.
“There are thousands of projects we’ve helped that may not have existed otherwise, and we feel incredibly proud of that,” Strickler said. “I’ve personally backed 340 projects, and I’m thrilled to be involved in all of them. The mood here in the office is one of excitement. We have a sense of wonder about the ways people are using Kickstarter.”
The projects are indeed all over the map. One recent project is aimed at building a Robocop statue in Detroit, similar to the Rocky statue in Philadelphia. Another is aimed at replacing use of the N-word in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the word “robot.” Independent game developer Muse Games is using Kickstarter to launch a limited edition of its game called CreaVures. Strickler said they’re all valid ways to draw support and attention around an idea.
The start-up has gotten a lot of press in tech circles for helping launch Diaspora, the open-source, social networking project. More recently, the TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits broke site records, raising close to a million dollars. But for all its success, technology is in the middle of the pack for Kickstarter categories in terms of number of projects. Leading the way are films by a long shot, followed by music and art. While the site has helped other would-be Diasporas and iPod accessories get off the ground, Strickler said Kickstarter is not meant to be a replacement for traditional VC or angel funding. ”We don’t want people looking to do a Series A; that won’t work too well with us,” he said.
It comes down to the site’s mission in creating discrete projects supporters can rally around, rather than boosting a start-up or business. Kickstarter, in fact, turns down 45 percent of applications because they don’t fit its requirements. Strickler said Kickstarter succeeds because of its simplicity and limits and because it calls for supporters to be rewarded, often in the form of early access or something produced by the project itself. That ensures everyone benefits, and it helps motivate supporters to spread the word. Projects can raise funds for up to 90 days, but the pledges aren’t collected unless the project hits its stated goal. That helps ensure there’s real demand and interest in the project and reduces the risk for backers.
The site, which makes money by taking a 5 percent cut of raised funds, has evolved modestly in its almost two years. One of the more significant changes was the introduction earlier this month of curated pages, which allows organizations, institutions and soon individuals to organize and manage multiple pages of Kickstarter projects. Strickler said it’s another way to highlight various projects on the site, which can only feature eight of them on its homepage. Overall, he sees more opportunities ahead as different groups discover the power of Kickstarter. He said theater and dance now have the highest success rates, in part, because they have strong communities that haven’t had tools like Kickstarter before. And early success stories are fueling even more projects.
“It’s all very organic,” Strickler said. “When you see one theater project make it, then you see 10 more because of the awareness.”
To Learn More Click Here
Coming up on its two-year-anniversary, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler is struck by how little the site has changed. Maybe the biggest difference has been just how many artists and creative types have flocked to the crowd-funding site, helping validate a new form of fundraising that is opening the eyes of not only artists but technology leaders.
New York-based Kickstarter, which launched in April 2009, began with the promise of creating an intersection between patronage and commerce, where artists could enlist the help of supporters, who would in turn pledge their money and help validate the artist’s project. What began as a small endeavor has blossomed into a sizable business, one that now raises $1 million a week in pledges and has hit $35 million pledged overall. So far, Kickstarter has helped 5,000 projects get funded with about 2,500 actively fundraising at the moment. About 250 to 300 new proposals come in a day, hoping to appeal to a pool of supporters of more than 600,000 people. Strickler said the concept for Kickstarter, first conceived by co-founder Perry Chen, has proven to be a powerful tool in helping ideas bloom.
“There are thousands of projects we’ve helped that may not have existed otherwise, and we feel incredibly proud of that,” Strickler said. “I’ve personally backed 340 projects, and I’m thrilled to be involved in all of them. The mood here in the office is one of excitement. We have a sense of wonder about the ways people are using Kickstarter.”
The projects are indeed all over the map. One recent project is aimed at building a Robocop statue in Detroit, similar to the Rocky statue in Philadelphia. Another is aimed at replacing use of the N-word in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the word “robot.” Independent game developer Muse Games is using Kickstarter to launch a limited edition of its game called CreaVures. Strickler said they’re all valid ways to draw support and attention around an idea.
The start-up has gotten a lot of press in tech circles for helping launch Diaspora, the open-source, social networking project. More recently, the TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits broke site records, raising close to a million dollars. But for all its success, technology is in the middle of the pack for Kickstarter categories in terms of number of projects. Leading the way are films by a long shot, followed by music and art. While the site has helped other would-be Diasporas and iPod accessories get off the ground, Strickler said Kickstarter is not meant to be a replacement for traditional VC or angel funding. ”We don’t want people looking to do a Series A; that won’t work too well with us,” he said.
It comes down to the site’s mission in creating discrete projects supporters can rally around, rather than boosting a start-up or business. Kickstarter, in fact, turns down 45 percent of applications because they don’t fit its requirements. Strickler said Kickstarter succeeds because of its simplicity and limits and because it calls for supporters to be rewarded, often in the form of early access or something produced by the project itself. That ensures everyone benefits, and it helps motivate supporters to spread the word. Projects can raise funds for up to 90 days, but the pledges aren’t collected unless the project hits its stated goal. That helps ensure there’s real demand and interest in the project and reduces the risk for backers.
The site, which makes money by taking a 5 percent cut of raised funds, has evolved modestly in its almost two years. One of the more significant changes was the introduction earlier this month of curated pages, which allows organizations, institutions and soon individuals to organize and manage multiple pages of Kickstarter projects. Strickler said it’s another way to highlight various projects on the site, which can only feature eight of them on its homepage. Overall, he sees more opportunities ahead as different groups discover the power of Kickstarter. He said theater and dance now have the highest success rates, in part, because they have strong communities that haven’t had tools like Kickstarter before. And early success stories are fueling even more projects.
“It’s all very organic,” Strickler said. “When you see one theater project make it, then you see 10 more because of the awareness.”
To Learn More Click Here
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Crowdfunding: Business startups use tactic as alternative to investors
By: Marino Eccher, INFORUM
For three years, Minneapolis-based comic publisher Raighne Hogan paid to produce his company’s annual anthology of comics by local artists – the Good Minnesotan – out of his own pocket. That was getting pricey. So when it came time this year to put out the Good Minnesotan 4, Hogan tried a different tactic: passing around a digital collection plate to seek support from the public.
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is the latest trend for artists, startups and small businesses: raising money from the public via online pledge drives, a few dollars at a time. A handful of regional projects have used the tactic to jump-start their efforts, and one Fargo company is banking on it to launch a brewery.
For three years, Minneapolis-based comic publisher Raighne Hogan paid to produce his company’s annual anthology of comics by local artists – the Good Minnesotan – out of his own pocket.
That was getting pricey. So when it came time this year to put out the Good Minnesotan 4, Hogan tried a different tactic: passing around a digital collection plate to seek support from the public. It’s a tactic known as crowdfunding, and it has taken root among a handful of regional business projects in recent years.
Those range from small artistic ventures like Hogan’s, which sought and raised $1,000 over the summer from online backers, to ambitious business ideas like the Fargo Brewing Company, which will seek $55,000 in early 2011 to start what would be the state’s only homegrown brewery. They dangle perks, swag and goodwill to coax contributions out of friends, family and strangers in amounts ranging from $1 to $10,000-plus.
Crowdfunded projects are powered by websites that feature a wide range of projects for public consideration. Hogan used New York-based Kickstarter, which features a handful of other Minnesota projects, while the Fargo Brewing Company is using Los Angeles-based ProFounder.
The specifics vary from site to site, but the basic model stays the same: Users post a project with a funding goal and a time limit, typically a month, and solicit pledges from backers with a short pitch. Many Kickstarter projects also include videos. If the goal is met on time, the pledges are locked in and the site takes a few percentage points of the money raised as a fee. If not, no money changes hands.
To call such sites investment vehicles would be a misnomer: Backers don’t own a piece of the projects they support or turn a profit (indeed, any such arrangements would entangle the sites in considerable regulatory oversight). Support a successful ProFounder project, and you’ll do no better than break even; support a Kickstarter project, and you won’t get your money back at all.
To bring in backers without the prospect of financial gain, crowdfunding projects usually turn to creative incentives. A $500 Kickstarter donation to a Minnesota Fringe Festival play might get you dinner with the actors. A $100 investment in the Fargo Brewing Company will get you a company T-shirt; $1,000 will get you on the guest list of exclusive company events, including tastings.
Dana Mauriello, president and co-founder of ProFounder, said getting that kind of reward for investing in a company “is almost like being a member of a cool club.”
In ProFounder’s case, there’s also a philanthropic incentive to give. Backers are repaid with a percentage of the company’s revenue over a set number of years. Once they recoup their investment, any revenue that would have gone toward repaying them goes instead to a nonprofit of the company’s choosing for the duration of the agreement.
“You believe in the person, you believe in the business, you believe in the business mission, you just want to see this business exist in the world,” Mauriello said.
But getting a crowdfunded project to catch on amid a sea of other offerings isn’t easy. ProFounder, which launched in December, has dozens of projects, while Kickstarter has hundreds. Hogan said standing out on Kickstarter meant working aggressively to start his project. He started a blog and “bothered friends and family” throughout the process.
“A lot of it was just trying to create some noise on the Web,” he said.
It doesn’t always work. Rip Smith, a West Virginia-based photographer, tried to raise $3,500 via Kickstarter this summer for a photography project to document abandoned places in rural North Dakota. He secured just $432 in pledges.
Smith said he thinks his fundraising goal was too ambitious. He also said he never seemed to garner much momentum on Kickstarter – he was never highlighted on the home page or chosen as the featured project of the week.
“If I had to guess, success in that medium requires either someone who already has a large constituency to whom to appeal, or the project needs to capture people’s imagination in some way,” he said. Smith said he did the North Dakota project anyway, and might try crowdfunding again for future projects.
Jared Hardy, one of the partners in the Fargo Brewing Company, said the importance of building an engaged audience is one of the reasons the company decided to launch next year rather than this month. He said the brewery wanted to make sure it was on the radar before starting the clock on its lofty fundraising goal.
“We wanted to give them a little more notice ahead of time,” he said. The company is also seeking about $150,000 through a private round of investing – another area in which ProFounder will help start-ups navigate regulatory challenges.
The brewery is dangling a unique prize for high-rolling backers: Give $10,000 or more, and they’ll create a themed seasonal brew in your honor. But the real payoff, he says, is getting a beer company up and running.
“You actually get to help start it and be a part of that,” he said. “We think that’s pretty cool.”
To Learn More Click Here
For three years, Minneapolis-based comic publisher Raighne Hogan paid to produce his company’s annual anthology of comics by local artists – the Good Minnesotan – out of his own pocket. That was getting pricey. So when it came time this year to put out the Good Minnesotan 4, Hogan tried a different tactic: passing around a digital collection plate to seek support from the public.
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is the latest trend for artists, startups and small businesses: raising money from the public via online pledge drives, a few dollars at a time. A handful of regional projects have used the tactic to jump-start their efforts, and one Fargo company is banking on it to launch a brewery.
For three years, Minneapolis-based comic publisher Raighne Hogan paid to produce his company’s annual anthology of comics by local artists – the Good Minnesotan – out of his own pocket.
That was getting pricey. So when it came time this year to put out the Good Minnesotan 4, Hogan tried a different tactic: passing around a digital collection plate to seek support from the public. It’s a tactic known as crowdfunding, and it has taken root among a handful of regional business projects in recent years.
Those range from small artistic ventures like Hogan’s, which sought and raised $1,000 over the summer from online backers, to ambitious business ideas like the Fargo Brewing Company, which will seek $55,000 in early 2011 to start what would be the state’s only homegrown brewery. They dangle perks, swag and goodwill to coax contributions out of friends, family and strangers in amounts ranging from $1 to $10,000-plus.
Crowdfunded projects are powered by websites that feature a wide range of projects for public consideration. Hogan used New York-based Kickstarter, which features a handful of other Minnesota projects, while the Fargo Brewing Company is using Los Angeles-based ProFounder.
The specifics vary from site to site, but the basic model stays the same: Users post a project with a funding goal and a time limit, typically a month, and solicit pledges from backers with a short pitch. Many Kickstarter projects also include videos. If the goal is met on time, the pledges are locked in and the site takes a few percentage points of the money raised as a fee. If not, no money changes hands.
To call such sites investment vehicles would be a misnomer: Backers don’t own a piece of the projects they support or turn a profit (indeed, any such arrangements would entangle the sites in considerable regulatory oversight). Support a successful ProFounder project, and you’ll do no better than break even; support a Kickstarter project, and you won’t get your money back at all.
To bring in backers without the prospect of financial gain, crowdfunding projects usually turn to creative incentives. A $500 Kickstarter donation to a Minnesota Fringe Festival play might get you dinner with the actors. A $100 investment in the Fargo Brewing Company will get you a company T-shirt; $1,000 will get you on the guest list of exclusive company events, including tastings.
Dana Mauriello, president and co-founder of ProFounder, said getting that kind of reward for investing in a company “is almost like being a member of a cool club.”
In ProFounder’s case, there’s also a philanthropic incentive to give. Backers are repaid with a percentage of the company’s revenue over a set number of years. Once they recoup their investment, any revenue that would have gone toward repaying them goes instead to a nonprofit of the company’s choosing for the duration of the agreement.
“You believe in the person, you believe in the business, you believe in the business mission, you just want to see this business exist in the world,” Mauriello said.
But getting a crowdfunded project to catch on amid a sea of other offerings isn’t easy. ProFounder, which launched in December, has dozens of projects, while Kickstarter has hundreds. Hogan said standing out on Kickstarter meant working aggressively to start his project. He started a blog and “bothered friends and family” throughout the process.
“A lot of it was just trying to create some noise on the Web,” he said.
It doesn’t always work. Rip Smith, a West Virginia-based photographer, tried to raise $3,500 via Kickstarter this summer for a photography project to document abandoned places in rural North Dakota. He secured just $432 in pledges.
Smith said he thinks his fundraising goal was too ambitious. He also said he never seemed to garner much momentum on Kickstarter – he was never highlighted on the home page or chosen as the featured project of the week.
“If I had to guess, success in that medium requires either someone who already has a large constituency to whom to appeal, or the project needs to capture people’s imagination in some way,” he said. Smith said he did the North Dakota project anyway, and might try crowdfunding again for future projects.
Jared Hardy, one of the partners in the Fargo Brewing Company, said the importance of building an engaged audience is one of the reasons the company decided to launch next year rather than this month. He said the brewery wanted to make sure it was on the radar before starting the clock on its lofty fundraising goal.
“We wanted to give them a little more notice ahead of time,” he said. The company is also seeking about $150,000 through a private round of investing – another area in which ProFounder will help start-ups navigate regulatory challenges.
The brewery is dangling a unique prize for high-rolling backers: Give $10,000 or more, and they’ll create a themed seasonal brew in your honor. But the real payoff, he says, is getting a beer company up and running.
“You actually get to help start it and be a part of that,” he said. “We think that’s pretty cool.”
To Learn More Click Here
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Will TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kits - a Kickstarter Project reach a $1,000,000 in pledges?
by James de Rin
If ever there was a project to reach a million dollars in crowdfunded pledges TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kits is the project to do it. With only a $15,000 goal the funding pledges have rolled in to the tune of $880,529 as of today. There are eleven hours to go. That's quite an endorsement of Kickstarter and this project. Not so long ago a $5,000 funding requirement was seen as ambitious, now a select few projects are achieving venture capital levels of crowdfunding. Congratulations to Kickstarter for their vision but it is the projects that are the true stars and this one was created by a real professional as you can see from the pitch video.
TikTok and LunaTik simply transform the iPod Nano into the world's coolest multi-touch watches. The idea to use the Nano as a watch was an obvious one ever since the product was announced. But we wanted to create a collection that was well designed, engineered and manufactured from premium materials and that complemented the impeccable quality of Apple products. Not just clipped on a cheap strap as an afterthought. We wanted to create a product that your friends and strangers would stop you and ask "WTF is that??? And where can I get one?!"
To Learn More Click Here
If ever there was a project to reach a million dollars in crowdfunded pledges TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kits is the project to do it. With only a $15,000 goal the funding pledges have rolled in to the tune of $880,529 as of today. There are eleven hours to go. That's quite an endorsement of Kickstarter and this project. Not so long ago a $5,000 funding requirement was seen as ambitious, now a select few projects are achieving venture capital levels of crowdfunding. Congratulations to Kickstarter for their vision but it is the projects that are the true stars and this one was created by a real professional as you can see from the pitch video.
TikTok and LunaTik simply transform the iPod Nano into the world's coolest multi-touch watches. The idea to use the Nano as a watch was an obvious one ever since the product was announced. But we wanted to create a collection that was well designed, engineered and manufactured from premium materials and that complemented the impeccable quality of Apple products. Not just clipped on a cheap strap as an afterthought. We wanted to create a product that your friends and strangers would stop you and ask "WTF is that??? And where can I get one?!"
To Learn More Click Here
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Find Customers and Fund Your Startup — Before You Even Have a Product
By Shonali Burke | November 16, 2010
Typically, most startups begin like this: They have a business idea, they raise the money to build their product or service, and then they launch a marketing strategy to gain visibility and awareness.
Web company Eat Your Serial isn’t operating like most startups. In fact, it’s doing all of the above backwards, or more accurately, all at once.
Aimed at digital-savvy writers and readers, Eat Your Serial, when launched, will feature serialized stories online from up-and-coming writers, putting a 21st-century twist on the long-standing story-telling tradition.
The company will post chapters weekly, with multiple stories running every week. Readers will be able to engage writers in comment sections and through social media. While content will be offered for free online, says founder Shawn Abraham, when the serials reach completion, readers will be encouraged to purchase the completed work in printed or e-book form. The company plans to make most of its revenue through paid mobile subscriptions that will allow readers to access the content on their phones, and through bundling subscriptions as extras on mobile devices. ”We keep hearing that people don’t read anymore, and that’s not true,” says Abraham. “What’s changed is that people are reading more online, and on their mobile devices. It’s just the ‘what’ and ‘how’ that have changed.”
Before his product had even moved past the conceptual stage, Abraham decided to crowdfund it via Kickstarter to get his company off the ground. His goal was to get enough supporters to kick in small amounts of money, which would collectively reach $7,000 or more; if he couldn’t attract that amount in committed funds, he would be back to square one. (Update: He made it.)
But it wasn’t just about raising money for the project — after all, it wasn’t much money. The Kickstarter experiment let Abraham simultaneously start growing his community as well as build his target market.
What is interesting about Abraham’s approach to outreach is that it is all online and through social platforms. In addition, it adheres to several PR best practices, but in quite a unique way.
Consider adopting (and adapting, if necessary) these backwards public relations tactics for your own outreach:
1. Build your presence first on the social platforms that matter to you.
Since the EYS team already knows its target audience uses Twitter and Facebook actively, that’s where they have been focusing their efforts on building fans. “Since Eat Your Serial, once launched, will be Web-based, we decided to build our community by reaching directly to the kind of people who’ll use the service,” says Jenn Pedde, the company’s “brand & marketing nutritionist.” And they’re using video as well, as you can see.
What they’re doing smartly here is that they are really “talking” to their community by saying “thank you” to those who have funded them. Pedde says Twitter and Facebook will continue to be forums for interaction with readers, writers, fans, and supporters.
2. Listen and participate in the relevant conversations.
In the old days, we called this “media monitoring,” i.e. keeping tabs on relevant media outlets for reporters and stories relevant to our clients and organizations, and then pitching them.
It’s the same principle, but now it’s called “listening,” and I wrote about listening vs. shouting in social media recently. The EYS team has been doing this in a very smart way; on Twitter they picked up on the #nanowrimo hashtag (short for National Novel Writing Month) and have been engaging with folks they identify as potential users there. In short, they’re not pitching all and sundry; they’re focusing their efforts on the narrow audience niche that is most likely to spread the Eat Your Serial story.
3. Create a 21st century press kit.
If you don’t have a media kit on your website, create one. Make sure it has your FAQ (this is part of laying a good PR foundation), and anything else that will tell both the media as well as your target audience what they will want to know about you.
The EYS team took this one step further. They uploaded an electronic press kit onto SlideShare and direct people there to get official info on Eat Your Serial.
Why is this smart? Because in one fell swoop, the company makes its information accessible via a downloadable press kit on what is currently one of the world’s largest document and presentation-sharing social platforms. While the company did not track true conversions from Slideshare to funding, it says it saw a spike in backers after the media kit went up, and received anecdotal feedback on how helpful the kit was to outsiders understanding the project.
With no monetary investment in outreach, except for Web design fees, Eat Your Serial has bypassed conventional wisdom with creativity and through social media to do what public relations has always been meant to do: build relationships that will benefit its business.
Eat Your Serial logo © Eat Your Serial, used with permission
Shonali Burke is Principal of Shonali Burke Consulting where she helps turn businesses’ communication conundrums into community cool. She opines on PR and social media at Waxing UnLyrical and is considered one of 25 women that rock social media.
To Learn More Click Here
Typically, most startups begin like this: They have a business idea, they raise the money to build their product or service, and then they launch a marketing strategy to gain visibility and awareness.
Web company Eat Your Serial isn’t operating like most startups. In fact, it’s doing all of the above backwards, or more accurately, all at once.
Aimed at digital-savvy writers and readers, Eat Your Serial, when launched, will feature serialized stories online from up-and-coming writers, putting a 21st-century twist on the long-standing story-telling tradition.
The company will post chapters weekly, with multiple stories running every week. Readers will be able to engage writers in comment sections and through social media. While content will be offered for free online, says founder Shawn Abraham, when the serials reach completion, readers will be encouraged to purchase the completed work in printed or e-book form. The company plans to make most of its revenue through paid mobile subscriptions that will allow readers to access the content on their phones, and through bundling subscriptions as extras on mobile devices. ”We keep hearing that people don’t read anymore, and that’s not true,” says Abraham. “What’s changed is that people are reading more online, and on their mobile devices. It’s just the ‘what’ and ‘how’ that have changed.”
Before his product had even moved past the conceptual stage, Abraham decided to crowdfund it via Kickstarter to get his company off the ground. His goal was to get enough supporters to kick in small amounts of money, which would collectively reach $7,000 or more; if he couldn’t attract that amount in committed funds, he would be back to square one. (Update: He made it.)
But it wasn’t just about raising money for the project — after all, it wasn’t much money. The Kickstarter experiment let Abraham simultaneously start growing his community as well as build his target market.
What is interesting about Abraham’s approach to outreach is that it is all online and through social platforms. In addition, it adheres to several PR best practices, but in quite a unique way.
Consider adopting (and adapting, if necessary) these backwards public relations tactics for your own outreach:
1. Build your presence first on the social platforms that matter to you.
Since the EYS team already knows its target audience uses Twitter and Facebook actively, that’s where they have been focusing their efforts on building fans. “Since Eat Your Serial, once launched, will be Web-based, we decided to build our community by reaching directly to the kind of people who’ll use the service,” says Jenn Pedde, the company’s “brand & marketing nutritionist.” And they’re using video as well, as you can see.
What they’re doing smartly here is that they are really “talking” to their community by saying “thank you” to those who have funded them. Pedde says Twitter and Facebook will continue to be forums for interaction with readers, writers, fans, and supporters.
2. Listen and participate in the relevant conversations.
In the old days, we called this “media monitoring,” i.e. keeping tabs on relevant media outlets for reporters and stories relevant to our clients and organizations, and then pitching them.
It’s the same principle, but now it’s called “listening,” and I wrote about listening vs. shouting in social media recently. The EYS team has been doing this in a very smart way; on Twitter they picked up on the #nanowrimo hashtag (short for National Novel Writing Month) and have been engaging with folks they identify as potential users there. In short, they’re not pitching all and sundry; they’re focusing their efforts on the narrow audience niche that is most likely to spread the Eat Your Serial story.
3. Create a 21st century press kit.
If you don’t have a media kit on your website, create one. Make sure it has your FAQ (this is part of laying a good PR foundation), and anything else that will tell both the media as well as your target audience what they will want to know about you.
The EYS team took this one step further. They uploaded an electronic press kit onto SlideShare and direct people there to get official info on Eat Your Serial.
Why is this smart? Because in one fell swoop, the company makes its information accessible via a downloadable press kit on what is currently one of the world’s largest document and presentation-sharing social platforms. While the company did not track true conversions from Slideshare to funding, it says it saw a spike in backers after the media kit went up, and received anecdotal feedback on how helpful the kit was to outsiders understanding the project.
With no monetary investment in outreach, except for Web design fees, Eat Your Serial has bypassed conventional wisdom with creativity and through social media to do what public relations has always been meant to do: build relationships that will benefit its business.
Eat Your Serial logo © Eat Your Serial, used with permission
Shonali Burke is Principal of Shonali Burke Consulting where she helps turn businesses’ communication conundrums into community cool. She opines on PR and social media at Waxing UnLyrical and is considered one of 25 women that rock social media.
To Learn More Click Here
Saturday, November 27, 2010
The 10 Most Successful Crowd-Funded Projects From Kickstarter
Posted by Jay Yarow
New York startup Kickstarter is one of the most interesting startups out there.
It provides a platform for people to raise money for projects. If people hit the target they set, then Kickstarter gets 5% of the money raised.
Over $20 million has been raised through Kickstarter so far. We estimate Kickstarter will generate approximately $2 million in revenue this year alone.
What makes for a good Kickstarter project? We've skimmed through Kickstarter's many projects and picked out 10 biggest successes and tried to figure out what works.
The number one thing we see: Make sure you're actually giving something to people. Especially a physical object. The number two thing: Make sure you're targeting a passionate crowd at the right time.
1. "Save Blue Like Jazz" raised more money than any other project
"Save Blue Like Jazz" raised $345,992 to save a movie project that was going to be canceled. The book "Blue like Jazz," was turned into a film, but ran out of funding before it could hit the big screen. Supporters started a Kickstarter project to get it going and created what they call, "the largest crowd-sourced creative project ever."
What was the key? It appears the key here was that it was a project with millions of fans already built in.
Incentives? The minimal donation landed you some goodies like posters, and script pages. The director of the movie is calling people to personally thank them for donating.
To Learn More Click Here
New York startup Kickstarter is one of the most interesting startups out there.
It provides a platform for people to raise money for projects. If people hit the target they set, then Kickstarter gets 5% of the money raised.
Over $20 million has been raised through Kickstarter so far. We estimate Kickstarter will generate approximately $2 million in revenue this year alone.
What makes for a good Kickstarter project? We've skimmed through Kickstarter's many projects and picked out 10 biggest successes and tried to figure out what works.
The number one thing we see: Make sure you're actually giving something to people. Especially a physical object. The number two thing: Make sure you're targeting a passionate crowd at the right time.
1. "Save Blue Like Jazz" raised more money than any other project
"Save Blue Like Jazz" raised $345,992 to save a movie project that was going to be canceled. The book "Blue like Jazz," was turned into a film, but ran out of funding before it could hit the big screen. Supporters started a Kickstarter project to get it going and created what they call, "the largest crowd-sourced creative project ever."
What was the key? It appears the key here was that it was a project with millions of fans already built in.
Incentives? The minimal donation landed you some goodies like posters, and script pages. The director of the movie is calling people to personally thank them for donating.
To Learn More Click Here
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Jazz artists turn to Kickstarter for funding
by Chris Barton Los Angeles Times
With a tough economy sending artists and food entrepreneurs toward grass-roots "crowd-funding" sites such as Kickstarter, it's no surprise that jazz musicians have started looking its way as well. Facing a cratering music industry, some of the worthy projects looking for support online include Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker's quest to fund his quartet's tribute to Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" and the New York City-based Search and Restore's ambitious $75,000 goal to create a year-long video documentation and online hub for the city's ever-percolating "indie" jazz community.
On the local front, Long Beach-based composer-guitarist Chris Schlarb joined Kickstarter to finance a limited, 180-gram vinyl release of his album "Psychic Temple," a contemplative, four-song odyssey that was only released digitally today via Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label. As one half of the atmospheric drone-jazz duo I Heart Lung, Schlarb's vision has grown even more ambitious with this record, which features 29 musicians that include members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Brian Blade Fellowship as well as local fixtures such as Mike Watt, Steuart Liebig and Anthony Shadduck.
In terms of categorization, Schlarb admits in the album's promo video (after the jump) that "Psychic Temple" doesn't fit squarely into a traditional view of jazz, but it's easy to hear a spiritual connection. Touches such as sweeping nonverbal vocals, the fuzzily elastic bassline cascading over "White Dove in the Psychic Temple" or the keening trumpet of the Empty Cage Quartet's Kris Tiner on album-opener "I Can Live Forever If I Slowly Die" are as reminiscent of the epic scope of some '70s jazz as the cinematic excursions of modern post-rock groups such as Chicago's Boxhead Ensemble.
In keeping with Kickstarter's rules, Schlarb's effort is an all-or-nothing proposition -- donations are only collected if his $3,555 goal is met by a Dec. 2 deadline. Following a similarly tiered system that drummer Josh Freese used to court fans for his solo album last year, Kickstarter artists often include amusing incentives with higher donation levels. Search and Restore's offers include a home-cooked meal from the organizers or an improvised musical voicemail from the Bad Plus' drummer Dave King, while Schlarb's pot-sweeteners range from a digital download at the $10 level to a personal performance anywhere in the U.S. for the most deep-pocketed donor.
At the time of this writing, Schlarb is a little more than a $1,000 away from his goal, an effort he further described in an e-mail as "No debt. No distribution. Just music." What could be more revolutionary than that?
To Learn More Click Here
With a tough economy sending artists and food entrepreneurs toward grass-roots "crowd-funding" sites such as Kickstarter, it's no surprise that jazz musicians have started looking its way as well. Facing a cratering music industry, some of the worthy projects looking for support online include Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker's quest to fund his quartet's tribute to Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" and the New York City-based Search and Restore's ambitious $75,000 goal to create a year-long video documentation and online hub for the city's ever-percolating "indie" jazz community.
On the local front, Long Beach-based composer-guitarist Chris Schlarb joined Kickstarter to finance a limited, 180-gram vinyl release of his album "Psychic Temple," a contemplative, four-song odyssey that was only released digitally today via Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label. As one half of the atmospheric drone-jazz duo I Heart Lung, Schlarb's vision has grown even more ambitious with this record, which features 29 musicians that include members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Brian Blade Fellowship as well as local fixtures such as Mike Watt, Steuart Liebig and Anthony Shadduck.
In terms of categorization, Schlarb admits in the album's promo video (after the jump) that "Psychic Temple" doesn't fit squarely into a traditional view of jazz, but it's easy to hear a spiritual connection. Touches such as sweeping nonverbal vocals, the fuzzily elastic bassline cascading over "White Dove in the Psychic Temple" or the keening trumpet of the Empty Cage Quartet's Kris Tiner on album-opener "I Can Live Forever If I Slowly Die" are as reminiscent of the epic scope of some '70s jazz as the cinematic excursions of modern post-rock groups such as Chicago's Boxhead Ensemble.
In keeping with Kickstarter's rules, Schlarb's effort is an all-or-nothing proposition -- donations are only collected if his $3,555 goal is met by a Dec. 2 deadline. Following a similarly tiered system that drummer Josh Freese used to court fans for his solo album last year, Kickstarter artists often include amusing incentives with higher donation levels. Search and Restore's offers include a home-cooked meal from the organizers or an improvised musical voicemail from the Bad Plus' drummer Dave King, while Schlarb's pot-sweeteners range from a digital download at the $10 level to a personal performance anywhere in the U.S. for the most deep-pocketed donor.
At the time of this writing, Schlarb is a little more than a $1,000 away from his goal, an effort he further described in an e-mail as "No debt. No distribution. Just music." What could be more revolutionary than that?
To Learn More Click Here
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Alms for the Creative: Crowdfunding means passing on traditional funding to pass the collection plate
Move to change securities regulations could mean big changes in the micro-funding model
by Josh Gross - Boise Weekly -
Travis Swartz wanted to make a movie, but he didn't have any money. And while the Boise resident had made zero-budget films before, he wanted this one to be different and that meant he needed some dough.
He could have pounded the pavement shopping his script about an unloved janitor with eight days to live to aspiring producers and so-and-so's rich uncle looking for the $25,000 needed, but Swartz didn't feel right about it.
"If we're all being honest with independent film, it's not a smart investment. It's an investment of love," Swartz said.
Instead, he chose to delve into the growing world of crowdfunding, where small, individual contributions provide a new way of getting projects off the ground, ranging from independent films or music to a hobbyist's attempt to create nuclear fusion in his Brooklyn garage.
Though there are several different variations on the crowdfunding model, the idea is to use the web to pitch an idea and collect small donations to fund it. Essentially, a project manager --an artist, filmmaker, journalist, scientist, etc.--creates a project profile and pitch on a crowdfunding site--like Kickstarter or Indiegogo--then uses social networking to solicit small contributions from a large number of people. In return, contributors receive non-monetary gifts relative to the amount of their contribution.
"When I first started looking into crowdfunding I was uncomfortable with it because it seemed like handing out the hat for nothing, but I discovered that's not what it's really about," Swartz said. "It's like pay-in-advance. You get something in return."
For donating to Swartz's film, Nobody Cares, contributors would be rewarded with what amounted to tokens of appreciation. A smaller donation would get a signed DVD, where a larger donation would guarantee a luxury private screening and the donor's name in the credits as a financier. Essentially, Swartz was pre-selling tickets to and copies of a movie he hadn't actually made yet.
From a promotional standpoint, Swartz's crowdfunding campaign would have made the audience personally invested in the film's progress in the same way comic book fans obsessively follow every step of film adaptations.
"It's really important to build an audience into the filmmaking process," Swartz said. "The old way is to send [a film] out to festivals and hope it builds an audience. Crowdfunding is really a process of not just raising the money, but raising the money from the audience that is really going to appreciate it."
The combination of the promotional and financial benefits of crowdfunding may be so successful, in fact, that even established institutions with solid donor bases are looking to augment their budgets by passing the virtual plate. In Boise, for example, Boise Contemporary Theater recently used Kickstarter to produce its 2010-2011 season opener, The Krumblin Foundation.
And while members of Boise's artistic community are piling on the crowdfunding gravy train to cover the cost of albums, plays and even teaching expeditions to Kenya, what many don't realize is that they're also firing the opening shots in what could be a major revamping of the laws that dictate how funding is done in this country, from the arts to small business.
As things stand now, crowdfunding contributors are sidestepping longstanding laws of the land. They are considered "donors" and not "investors" and can only receive non-monetary gifts. If they were to benefit financially from their donation, it would be in direct violation of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1933, the law passed to prevent the sort of practices that brought on the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
The act "Requires that any offer or sale of securities using the means and instrumentalities of interstate commerce be registered pursuant to the 1933 Act, unless an exemption from registration exists under the law."
No exemption exists for the type of small-scale projects crowdfunding is typically used for. Anyone who wants to offer financial returns must register with the SEC, a process often more complicated and expensive than the project itself.
"What those laws were protecting against was the oil speculators knocking on widows and doors," said Danae Ringlemann, co-founder and CFO of IndieGogo, a crowdfunding site that operates in more than 130 countries. "But that was an age when communication was literally knocking on doors. You had to get physical reports on how projects were running."
According to Ringlemann, the transparency brought by the Internet is the single biggest change since the laws governing these transactions were written. And though the Internet has provided tools to more effectively assess risk and track projects, the laws are still strictly enforced.
"We're not dealing with big amounts of money here," said Tim Kappel, a Nashville-based entertainment lawyer who specializes in crowdfunding. "There are ways to structure in protections for the creative investor. Meanwhile, you've got the stock market, which is a big roulette table and people treat it like a casino or a race track."
Kappel published a paper in the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, explaining the differences and problems between what he calls "pure patronage" and "patronage-plus" models--the "plus" being financial returns.
"The U.S. market poses unique and significant legal obstacles--specifically laws governing gambling and the sale of securities--that could derail any effort to import a patronage-plus ex ante crowdfunding system for the recording industry," Kappel wrote.
Kappel translated that from law person to lay person.
"When you start offering a share of the profits that are created through the sale of distribution of the product, then you're dealing with investment laws," said Kappel. "If someone wanted to offer more than a tote bag, if someone wants to offer an investment, they can't. They would certainly run afoul of SEC laws. And that has to go through a ton of regulation as a public offering."
Aside from contributors' inability to make money, this creates an odd loophole in the process. Since contributors aren't legally investors, that also means they don't have any ownership or control. And while this is certainly an arrangement artists prefer, it also means that there's no back-end protection for contributors. If an artist doesn't follow through on a project, there isn't much that can be done about it. While some crowdfunding websites hold the money as pledges of support until a goal is reached, others do not, and almost universally, there are no guarantees that a project that has been funded will reach fruition. Theoretically, project managers are legally culpable, but since the average contribution hovers around $25, the chances of a lawsuit from contributors are minimal.
It's what Kappel calls the difference between a legally enforceable right and practically enforceable right.
In Kappel's paper, he cites European crowdfunding websites such as Bandstocks, which allows bands to sell 10-pound shares in their album projects. Bandstocks, however, provides back-end protection by suing on behalf of contributors should a project get dropped.
However, Ringlemann said dealing with a donor unhappy about incomplete projects hasn't yet been a problem for Indiegogo.
"It's always possible someone can take the money and run off to Bermuda," she said. "But the probability is incredibly low."
Ringlemann said the two things that make it unlikely are human nature and transparency provided by the Internet.
"No one raises money from 100 percent strangers," she said. "Crowdfunding can be a way to raise money from friends and family more quickly."
Ringlemann cited a crowdfunding campaign to buy a new computer for a student as a birthday present. Her friends all pitched in a few bucks and she had enough for a new computer within several days.
Ringlemann said in a typical campaign, initial donations by friends and family serve as a vetting process. People aren't quick to financially cross those closest to them. And while strangers may eventually donate to a campaign, it's unlikely to reach that point if friends and family aren't willing to risk a few dollars first. It's part of what Ringlemann calls a "social score."
"Right now, we're judged by a credit score," she said. "But over time, I think that is going to adapt to include how good you are at following through on things like Facebook and Twitter as a way of further assessing your credibility. When you see people with great followings on Twitter, they have them because they're doing good work."
Ringlemann said a crowdfunding scam is hard to run online simply because there are so many options, and a project manager's social score can be easily gauged by prior successes and failures listed on the project page.
That transparency is why the process has such appeal to both project managers and contributors and has been successfully employed for such a wide variety of projects.
Longtime BW columnist Ted Rall even used crowdfunding to raise $25,999 for his recent expedition to Afghanistan to cover the research costs of a new book. The money covered one month's expenses--an amount Rall claimed in his pitch video would normally prohibit reporters not backed by large corporate sponsors from making the trip. He and his colleagues, cartoon journalist Matt Bors and web cartoonist Steven L. Cloud, claimed to be the only unembedded reporters operating in the nation at the time.
For their part, Rall's 211 backers received, or will receive, gifts like signed copies of his book, original sketches and thank yous in the book's liner notes. One contributor bought dinner and drinks with the author for a cool $1,000.
Since crowdfunding appears to be an effective way to raise capital, small businesses are looking at how it could be used to their benefit. But under current SEC laws, such a venture would be illegal. That's why a growing movement is trying to change the law.
"Like everyone, I have more ideas than I pursue. And for as along as I can remember, I thought there should be a way for people to invest in me, in others, with small amounts of money. Not just as a means to do it, but as external motivation," said Paul Spinrad, project editor for Make magazine, who is leading the charge to change the SEC laws and make crowdfunding easier.
He tried to put that into action with the Premises Premises website, which was a rudimentary attempt at crowdfunding. Spinrad said it failed because the site didn't frame ideas well enough. Since then, more successful crowdfunding sites have incorporated the best elements of social networking.
When he learned about Kickstarter, Spinrad wrote several guest opinions on the popular blog boingboing.net about the potential of investing in intellectual property. People seemed interested, so he took that energy and decided to see what could be done with it.
He discovered that the SEC accepts public petitions, which are posted on the SEC website for public comment.
Spinrad decided to levy the crowd to push the SEC to write an exemption to the Securities and Exchange Act for investments of less than $100 using the comment process.
"Even if just 50 people submit comments, it's going to be way more than they've dealt with before," said Spinrad. "It's a backwater."
The exemption wouldn't cost anything, but it could open new ways for investors to make money.
"Securities deregulation, people are down on it right now," Spinrad said. "And generally I am as well, but this is not high-level insider corporate gaming. This is the kind of deregulation that a leftie can love."
Spinrad acknowledges that comment-bombing a site could backfire, but he feels the comment process is in line with the principles of crowdfunding, making it the ideal method.
"I don't want to antagonize the SEC," Spinrad said. "This is to inject it into public dialog. If they don't want to do that, that's their bad. But if it's a proposal worth consideration, then they should consider it."
It seems to be working. His campaign has levied 39 comments so far, including several from CEOs and an in-depth analysis of the exemptions potential from an associate professor of finance at Georgetown University. The American Sustainable Business Council, a prominent lobbying group, picked his cause as one of its official campaigns, and Spinrad even got an unsolicited letter from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy encouraging him to attend and push for the exemption at an annual open forum the SEC holds to meet with small business leaders.
While Spinrad sees the exemption as a way for artists to fund projects, Jenny Kassan, co-director of the California-based Sustainable Economies Law Center--who is helping Spinrad with the petition--sees it from a different perspective. For her, this is the only way small businesses will ever be able to get a fair shake.
"If you care at all about supporting small, locally owned businesses in your community, this is a crucial issue," Kassan said. She contends that without it, large corporations will always have an advantage over mom-and-pop stores.
"A lot of people don't understand securities regulations in the first place, so they don't understand why we need to do this," she said. "But the more people realize how hard it is for a small business to raise money legally, and that people are not allowed to go out and ask their friends or their community for an investment, the more excited they get. Especially now, in this climate, when businesses are suffering."
In Kassan's view, the idea that people can freely stroll around dropping money on the lottery or in a casino, but that the government won't let them risk it on an investment is absurd.
"Let's leave it up to the people," said Kassan. "It's their $100. They're not going to die if they lose it."
Kassan sent a nine-page letter to the SEC in late June outlining the proposed changes in detail, including several caveats to ensure it isn't exploited.
No. 1: No purchaser may invest more than $100.
No. 2: The aggregate offering is limited to $100,000 maximum.
No. 3: Offerors must be individuals. Offerors may not be entities and must be United States citizens or legal residents.
No. 4: No offeror may have more than one offering open at any time.
No. 5: All offering materials and communications must contain a disclaimer clearly stating the possibility of total loss of the investment and the necessity of careful evaluation of each offeror's trustworthiness by the individual purchaser.
The letter also includes detailed descriptions of the benefits Kassan expects to see as justification.
"It's a totally crazy long-shot," she said. "Especially in this environment. Unfortunately, a lot of really bad players have made people really nervous about doing anything that would loosen up the rules at all.
"We wouldn't do it if we didn't think there wasn't a chance," Kassan added. "It's a very reasonable request."
Even if Ringlemann and IndieGogo didn't stand to benefit from the potential exemption, she said she'd support it. One of the things that drove her to start IndieGogo was being the child of small business owners and watching them refinance their house and cover business expenses with credit cards for 30 years.
"Ever year, 7 million ventures start," said Ringlemann. The average outlay is $45,000. But the average need is only $4,500. Most businesses are something like a hot dog cart. So people are financing it themselves with credit cards. If there was an easy way for people to raise 10 grand, then that could be the bread and butter of America.
According to Ringlemann, Kassan and Spinrad, a SEC exemption on small-scale investments is that way.
"There are two ways to protect people," Ringlemann said. "Require companies to do risk disclosure or cap investments. Second [option] wasn't used in 1933 because it was too hard to track. The Internet has changed that. So the question becomes what is the appropriate level? $100? $1,000?"
Spinrad, the arts enthusiast, sits at the $100-end of the spectrum. Investors and financiers are pushing for a larger, and therefore potentially profitable, cap.
But even if all the legal minutiae is resolved, there's still the question of why anyone would fork over their hard-earned $20 to someone else's crazy idea rather than their own.
For Megan Egbert, a Boise librarian, it started out as helping her friend Gregory Bayne with his film Driven.
"The platform allows someone not only to ask for money, but to show what they're doing," she said. "Plus, it makes it not awkward if you want to refuse."
Bayne campaigned to fund his soon-to-be-released documentary about mixed-martial arts fighter Jens Pulver getting ready for his underdog shot at the big-time. His effort has been used as a model of how to use crowdfunding.
Bayne first tried to raise money the traditional way, but he started running out of time before Pulver's main event. So Bayne made a trailer and put it on Youtube.
The trailer got more than 10,000 views in one week, which proved there was an audience, so he decided to try crowdfunding. His goal was $25,000 in 20 days, but he ended up with $27,000 and a fanbase itching to see the film.
Bayne was also able to use the contributors as a test audience, sending out clips and rough cuts to see how people responded.
After contributing to Driven, Egbert became curious and looked for other causes to support, giving to several including Travis Swartz's film.
"I wouldn't give money to someone if I had doubts about it. I've donated pretty small amounts to people, so if someone takes my $25 and runs I'm not going to be that worried about it," she said.
Paul Carew, another Boisean who contributed to Bayne and Swartz had similar sentiments. He was friends with both of them, but he also appreciated the efficiency of the process.
"I'm a business owner and a very busy person," said Carew. "In the situations where I used Kickstarter, it was a gut decision, and I knew I could plug in a credit card in 30 seconds and be done with it."
While the ease of donating to a project is attractive to donors, it's also drawing the attention of established organizations, which see it as a way to reach out to a new funding pool. Boise Contemporary Theater's Artistic Director Matthew Cameron Clark said in an age of declining corporate contributions, The Krumblin Foundation wouldn't have been possible without the campaign.
"New work costs more," he said. "Time for development, commissioning, fees, etc. We had to find new way to fund additional expenses."
Those new ways were to offer gifts ranging from free drinks to signed scripts to donors' names being written into the script (only $1,000 or more). The campaign was so well received that BCT raised $12,645 from 178 backers.
Still, crowdfunding isn't always the answer.
After only a few weeks, Swartz decided to cancel his Kickstarter campaign to fund Nobody Cares.
"With Kickstarter, I found I was spending my pre-production time being a fundraiser as opposed to being a filmmaker," Swartz said. "I think if I'd done it earlier and had a different plan for it, it would have worked out well. But I started a bit late, and I ended up spending exponential time on it because you have to hit that goal by a certain date."
Instead, he set up a PayPal account on his own website that people could use to contribute, and found a partner who took care of many of the equipment costs, making it possible to start production. Swartz wrapped shooting in early October and is in the months-long editing process.
To complete the project, he said he will need to continue raising funds, and though contributions have trickled off since the initial push, Swartz feels it will pick up again once he's cut enough of the film to show people what they're paying for.
"[Contributing] seems more a reaction to how much energy people see you putting into the project," Swartz said. "When they see that you have something, as opposed to the promise that you might have something, it has more impact."
At last report, Swartz had raised $3,100, far short of his initial goal of $25,000. But he's not concerned.
"I'm shooting the movie," he said. "That's the most important part."
To Learn More Click Here
by Josh Gross - Boise Weekly -
Travis Swartz wanted to make a movie, but he didn't have any money. And while the Boise resident had made zero-budget films before, he wanted this one to be different and that meant he needed some dough.
He could have pounded the pavement shopping his script about an unloved janitor with eight days to live to aspiring producers and so-and-so's rich uncle looking for the $25,000 needed, but Swartz didn't feel right about it.
"If we're all being honest with independent film, it's not a smart investment. It's an investment of love," Swartz said.
Instead, he chose to delve into the growing world of crowdfunding, where small, individual contributions provide a new way of getting projects off the ground, ranging from independent films or music to a hobbyist's attempt to create nuclear fusion in his Brooklyn garage.
Though there are several different variations on the crowdfunding model, the idea is to use the web to pitch an idea and collect small donations to fund it. Essentially, a project manager --an artist, filmmaker, journalist, scientist, etc.--creates a project profile and pitch on a crowdfunding site--like Kickstarter or Indiegogo--then uses social networking to solicit small contributions from a large number of people. In return, contributors receive non-monetary gifts relative to the amount of their contribution.
"When I first started looking into crowdfunding I was uncomfortable with it because it seemed like handing out the hat for nothing, but I discovered that's not what it's really about," Swartz said. "It's like pay-in-advance. You get something in return."
For donating to Swartz's film, Nobody Cares, contributors would be rewarded with what amounted to tokens of appreciation. A smaller donation would get a signed DVD, where a larger donation would guarantee a luxury private screening and the donor's name in the credits as a financier. Essentially, Swartz was pre-selling tickets to and copies of a movie he hadn't actually made yet.
From a promotional standpoint, Swartz's crowdfunding campaign would have made the audience personally invested in the film's progress in the same way comic book fans obsessively follow every step of film adaptations.
"It's really important to build an audience into the filmmaking process," Swartz said. "The old way is to send [a film] out to festivals and hope it builds an audience. Crowdfunding is really a process of not just raising the money, but raising the money from the audience that is really going to appreciate it."
The combination of the promotional and financial benefits of crowdfunding may be so successful, in fact, that even established institutions with solid donor bases are looking to augment their budgets by passing the virtual plate. In Boise, for example, Boise Contemporary Theater recently used Kickstarter to produce its 2010-2011 season opener, The Krumblin Foundation.
And while members of Boise's artistic community are piling on the crowdfunding gravy train to cover the cost of albums, plays and even teaching expeditions to Kenya, what many don't realize is that they're also firing the opening shots in what could be a major revamping of the laws that dictate how funding is done in this country, from the arts to small business.
As things stand now, crowdfunding contributors are sidestepping longstanding laws of the land. They are considered "donors" and not "investors" and can only receive non-monetary gifts. If they were to benefit financially from their donation, it would be in direct violation of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1933, the law passed to prevent the sort of practices that brought on the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.
The act "Requires that any offer or sale of securities using the means and instrumentalities of interstate commerce be registered pursuant to the 1933 Act, unless an exemption from registration exists under the law."
No exemption exists for the type of small-scale projects crowdfunding is typically used for. Anyone who wants to offer financial returns must register with the SEC, a process often more complicated and expensive than the project itself.
"What those laws were protecting against was the oil speculators knocking on widows and doors," said Danae Ringlemann, co-founder and CFO of IndieGogo, a crowdfunding site that operates in more than 130 countries. "But that was an age when communication was literally knocking on doors. You had to get physical reports on how projects were running."
According to Ringlemann, the transparency brought by the Internet is the single biggest change since the laws governing these transactions were written. And though the Internet has provided tools to more effectively assess risk and track projects, the laws are still strictly enforced.
"We're not dealing with big amounts of money here," said Tim Kappel, a Nashville-based entertainment lawyer who specializes in crowdfunding. "There are ways to structure in protections for the creative investor. Meanwhile, you've got the stock market, which is a big roulette table and people treat it like a casino or a race track."
Kappel published a paper in the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, explaining the differences and problems between what he calls "pure patronage" and "patronage-plus" models--the "plus" being financial returns.
"The U.S. market poses unique and significant legal obstacles--specifically laws governing gambling and the sale of securities--that could derail any effort to import a patronage-plus ex ante crowdfunding system for the recording industry," Kappel wrote.
Kappel translated that from law person to lay person.
"When you start offering a share of the profits that are created through the sale of distribution of the product, then you're dealing with investment laws," said Kappel. "If someone wanted to offer more than a tote bag, if someone wants to offer an investment, they can't. They would certainly run afoul of SEC laws. And that has to go through a ton of regulation as a public offering."
Aside from contributors' inability to make money, this creates an odd loophole in the process. Since contributors aren't legally investors, that also means they don't have any ownership or control. And while this is certainly an arrangement artists prefer, it also means that there's no back-end protection for contributors. If an artist doesn't follow through on a project, there isn't much that can be done about it. While some crowdfunding websites hold the money as pledges of support until a goal is reached, others do not, and almost universally, there are no guarantees that a project that has been funded will reach fruition. Theoretically, project managers are legally culpable, but since the average contribution hovers around $25, the chances of a lawsuit from contributors are minimal.
It's what Kappel calls the difference between a legally enforceable right and practically enforceable right.
In Kappel's paper, he cites European crowdfunding websites such as Bandstocks, which allows bands to sell 10-pound shares in their album projects. Bandstocks, however, provides back-end protection by suing on behalf of contributors should a project get dropped.
However, Ringlemann said dealing with a donor unhappy about incomplete projects hasn't yet been a problem for Indiegogo.
"It's always possible someone can take the money and run off to Bermuda," she said. "But the probability is incredibly low."
Ringlemann said the two things that make it unlikely are human nature and transparency provided by the Internet.
"No one raises money from 100 percent strangers," she said. "Crowdfunding can be a way to raise money from friends and family more quickly."
Ringlemann cited a crowdfunding campaign to buy a new computer for a student as a birthday present. Her friends all pitched in a few bucks and she had enough for a new computer within several days.
Ringlemann said in a typical campaign, initial donations by friends and family serve as a vetting process. People aren't quick to financially cross those closest to them. And while strangers may eventually donate to a campaign, it's unlikely to reach that point if friends and family aren't willing to risk a few dollars first. It's part of what Ringlemann calls a "social score."
"Right now, we're judged by a credit score," she said. "But over time, I think that is going to adapt to include how good you are at following through on things like Facebook and Twitter as a way of further assessing your credibility. When you see people with great followings on Twitter, they have them because they're doing good work."
Ringlemann said a crowdfunding scam is hard to run online simply because there are so many options, and a project manager's social score can be easily gauged by prior successes and failures listed on the project page.
That transparency is why the process has such appeal to both project managers and contributors and has been successfully employed for such a wide variety of projects.
Longtime BW columnist Ted Rall even used crowdfunding to raise $25,999 for his recent expedition to Afghanistan to cover the research costs of a new book. The money covered one month's expenses--an amount Rall claimed in his pitch video would normally prohibit reporters not backed by large corporate sponsors from making the trip. He and his colleagues, cartoon journalist Matt Bors and web cartoonist Steven L. Cloud, claimed to be the only unembedded reporters operating in the nation at the time.
For their part, Rall's 211 backers received, or will receive, gifts like signed copies of his book, original sketches and thank yous in the book's liner notes. One contributor bought dinner and drinks with the author for a cool $1,000.
Since crowdfunding appears to be an effective way to raise capital, small businesses are looking at how it could be used to their benefit. But under current SEC laws, such a venture would be illegal. That's why a growing movement is trying to change the law.
"Like everyone, I have more ideas than I pursue. And for as along as I can remember, I thought there should be a way for people to invest in me, in others, with small amounts of money. Not just as a means to do it, but as external motivation," said Paul Spinrad, project editor for Make magazine, who is leading the charge to change the SEC laws and make crowdfunding easier.
He tried to put that into action with the Premises Premises website, which was a rudimentary attempt at crowdfunding. Spinrad said it failed because the site didn't frame ideas well enough. Since then, more successful crowdfunding sites have incorporated the best elements of social networking.
When he learned about Kickstarter, Spinrad wrote several guest opinions on the popular blog boingboing.net about the potential of investing in intellectual property. People seemed interested, so he took that energy and decided to see what could be done with it.
He discovered that the SEC accepts public petitions, which are posted on the SEC website for public comment.
Spinrad decided to levy the crowd to push the SEC to write an exemption to the Securities and Exchange Act for investments of less than $100 using the comment process.
"Even if just 50 people submit comments, it's going to be way more than they've dealt with before," said Spinrad. "It's a backwater."
The exemption wouldn't cost anything, but it could open new ways for investors to make money.
"Securities deregulation, people are down on it right now," Spinrad said. "And generally I am as well, but this is not high-level insider corporate gaming. This is the kind of deregulation that a leftie can love."
Spinrad acknowledges that comment-bombing a site could backfire, but he feels the comment process is in line with the principles of crowdfunding, making it the ideal method.
"I don't want to antagonize the SEC," Spinrad said. "This is to inject it into public dialog. If they don't want to do that, that's their bad. But if it's a proposal worth consideration, then they should consider it."
It seems to be working. His campaign has levied 39 comments so far, including several from CEOs and an in-depth analysis of the exemptions potential from an associate professor of finance at Georgetown University. The American Sustainable Business Council, a prominent lobbying group, picked his cause as one of its official campaigns, and Spinrad even got an unsolicited letter from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy encouraging him to attend and push for the exemption at an annual open forum the SEC holds to meet with small business leaders.
While Spinrad sees the exemption as a way for artists to fund projects, Jenny Kassan, co-director of the California-based Sustainable Economies Law Center--who is helping Spinrad with the petition--sees it from a different perspective. For her, this is the only way small businesses will ever be able to get a fair shake.
"If you care at all about supporting small, locally owned businesses in your community, this is a crucial issue," Kassan said. She contends that without it, large corporations will always have an advantage over mom-and-pop stores.
"A lot of people don't understand securities regulations in the first place, so they don't understand why we need to do this," she said. "But the more people realize how hard it is for a small business to raise money legally, and that people are not allowed to go out and ask their friends or their community for an investment, the more excited they get. Especially now, in this climate, when businesses are suffering."
In Kassan's view, the idea that people can freely stroll around dropping money on the lottery or in a casino, but that the government won't let them risk it on an investment is absurd.
"Let's leave it up to the people," said Kassan. "It's their $100. They're not going to die if they lose it."
Kassan sent a nine-page letter to the SEC in late June outlining the proposed changes in detail, including several caveats to ensure it isn't exploited.
No. 1: No purchaser may invest more than $100.
No. 2: The aggregate offering is limited to $100,000 maximum.
No. 3: Offerors must be individuals. Offerors may not be entities and must be United States citizens or legal residents.
No. 4: No offeror may have more than one offering open at any time.
No. 5: All offering materials and communications must contain a disclaimer clearly stating the possibility of total loss of the investment and the necessity of careful evaluation of each offeror's trustworthiness by the individual purchaser.
The letter also includes detailed descriptions of the benefits Kassan expects to see as justification.
"It's a totally crazy long-shot," she said. "Especially in this environment. Unfortunately, a lot of really bad players have made people really nervous about doing anything that would loosen up the rules at all.
"We wouldn't do it if we didn't think there wasn't a chance," Kassan added. "It's a very reasonable request."
Even if Ringlemann and IndieGogo didn't stand to benefit from the potential exemption, she said she'd support it. One of the things that drove her to start IndieGogo was being the child of small business owners and watching them refinance their house and cover business expenses with credit cards for 30 years.
"Ever year, 7 million ventures start," said Ringlemann. The average outlay is $45,000. But the average need is only $4,500. Most businesses are something like a hot dog cart. So people are financing it themselves with credit cards. If there was an easy way for people to raise 10 grand, then that could be the bread and butter of America.
According to Ringlemann, Kassan and Spinrad, a SEC exemption on small-scale investments is that way.
"There are two ways to protect people," Ringlemann said. "Require companies to do risk disclosure or cap investments. Second [option] wasn't used in 1933 because it was too hard to track. The Internet has changed that. So the question becomes what is the appropriate level? $100? $1,000?"
Spinrad, the arts enthusiast, sits at the $100-end of the spectrum. Investors and financiers are pushing for a larger, and therefore potentially profitable, cap.
But even if all the legal minutiae is resolved, there's still the question of why anyone would fork over their hard-earned $20 to someone else's crazy idea rather than their own.
For Megan Egbert, a Boise librarian, it started out as helping her friend Gregory Bayne with his film Driven.
"The platform allows someone not only to ask for money, but to show what they're doing," she said. "Plus, it makes it not awkward if you want to refuse."
Bayne campaigned to fund his soon-to-be-released documentary about mixed-martial arts fighter Jens Pulver getting ready for his underdog shot at the big-time. His effort has been used as a model of how to use crowdfunding.
Bayne first tried to raise money the traditional way, but he started running out of time before Pulver's main event. So Bayne made a trailer and put it on Youtube.
The trailer got more than 10,000 views in one week, which proved there was an audience, so he decided to try crowdfunding. His goal was $25,000 in 20 days, but he ended up with $27,000 and a fanbase itching to see the film.
Bayne was also able to use the contributors as a test audience, sending out clips and rough cuts to see how people responded.
After contributing to Driven, Egbert became curious and looked for other causes to support, giving to several including Travis Swartz's film.
"I wouldn't give money to someone if I had doubts about it. I've donated pretty small amounts to people, so if someone takes my $25 and runs I'm not going to be that worried about it," she said.
Paul Carew, another Boisean who contributed to Bayne and Swartz had similar sentiments. He was friends with both of them, but he also appreciated the efficiency of the process.
"I'm a business owner and a very busy person," said Carew. "In the situations where I used Kickstarter, it was a gut decision, and I knew I could plug in a credit card in 30 seconds and be done with it."
While the ease of donating to a project is attractive to donors, it's also drawing the attention of established organizations, which see it as a way to reach out to a new funding pool. Boise Contemporary Theater's Artistic Director Matthew Cameron Clark said in an age of declining corporate contributions, The Krumblin Foundation wouldn't have been possible without the campaign.
"New work costs more," he said. "Time for development, commissioning, fees, etc. We had to find new way to fund additional expenses."
Those new ways were to offer gifts ranging from free drinks to signed scripts to donors' names being written into the script (only $1,000 or more). The campaign was so well received that BCT raised $12,645 from 178 backers.
Still, crowdfunding isn't always the answer.
After only a few weeks, Swartz decided to cancel his Kickstarter campaign to fund Nobody Cares.
"With Kickstarter, I found I was spending my pre-production time being a fundraiser as opposed to being a filmmaker," Swartz said. "I think if I'd done it earlier and had a different plan for it, it would have worked out well. But I started a bit late, and I ended up spending exponential time on it because you have to hit that goal by a certain date."
Instead, he set up a PayPal account on his own website that people could use to contribute, and found a partner who took care of many of the equipment costs, making it possible to start production. Swartz wrapped shooting in early October and is in the months-long editing process.
To complete the project, he said he will need to continue raising funds, and though contributions have trickled off since the initial push, Swartz feels it will pick up again once he's cut enough of the film to show people what they're paying for.
"[Contributing] seems more a reaction to how much energy people see you putting into the project," Swartz said. "When they see that you have something, as opposed to the promise that you might have something, it has more impact."
At last report, Swartz had raised $3,100, far short of his initial goal of $25,000. But he's not concerned.
"I'm shooting the movie," he said. "That's the most important part."
To Learn More Click Here
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Detroit gets big share of Kickstarter micro-grants
DETROIT FREE PRESS, 10/28/2010
Kickstarter may be a well-known buzzword in the Internet startup world, but it's also becoming well known in Detroit. And for good reason.
Excerpt:
Idealists like Noam Kimmelman, Tom Nardone and Ellen Donnelly flock to Detroit, eager to lay claim to what they see as a blank canvas for urban renewal.
Their projects are creative, artsy and altruistic -- but not quite fodder for traditional grants.
So each has turned to kickstarter.com , a global micro-granting Web site for art, film and creative projects. The three are among a dozen at any given time in metro Detroit asking the world for chunks of $25 or $50 to fund projects in their quest to fix the city. Donors have given thousands of dollars, so far, to local art-as-renewal projects.
It's a phenomenon the Brooklyn-based company is seeing only in Detroit.
"There's a groundswell of people all over, saying, 'Let's save Detroit,'" said Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler. "It's seen as a kind of wild west for art."
To Learn More Click Here
Kickstarter may be a well-known buzzword in the Internet startup world, but it's also becoming well known in Detroit. And for good reason.
Excerpt:
Idealists like Noam Kimmelman, Tom Nardone and Ellen Donnelly flock to Detroit, eager to lay claim to what they see as a blank canvas for urban renewal.
Their projects are creative, artsy and altruistic -- but not quite fodder for traditional grants.
So each has turned to kickstarter.com , a global micro-granting Web site for art, film and creative projects. The three are among a dozen at any given time in metro Detroit asking the world for chunks of $25 or $50 to fund projects in their quest to fix the city. Donors have given thousands of dollars, so far, to local art-as-renewal projects.
It's a phenomenon the Brooklyn-based company is seeing only in Detroit.
"There's a groundswell of people all over, saying, 'Let's save Detroit,'" said Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler. "It's seen as a kind of wild west for art."
To Learn More Click Here
Donors Save 'Blue Like Jazz' Pic
By MIKE FLEMING Deadline.com | Thursday October 28, 2010 @ 10:49am EDT
Most films don't tap into moviegoer wallets until they reach theaters. But Blue Like Jazz, an adaptation of Donald Miller's faith-based book, waged a 30-day campaign that raised $346,000 from 3900 supporters. That allowed the film to overcome a budget shortfall and begin production yesterday in Nashville. Marshall Allman (True Blood) plays the lead role of Miller, Tania Raymonde (Lost) and Justin Welborn (The Crazies) also star. Steve Taylor is directing. The dough was raised through Kickstarter.com, and the flm's backers claim it's the largest crowd-sourced creative project ever. The book is about the author's spiritual journey and the donation campaign started when the author blogged that the movie version of his book would be placed on indefinite hold because an investor fell out for $250,000. Two fans, Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier, created a grassroots save-the-film campaign by launching Savebluelikejazz.com. One of the film's backers agreed to match the amount raised if it got to $125,000. That backer will match the $346,000. That gives the filmmakers an extra $450,000 that will be used for extra shooting days. The total budget of the film is under $5 million. These donors won't get their money back, but there were other incentives. The director has personally called around 300 of the donors so far, and between shots, will be logging phone time until he completes over 1000 thank you calls. Many donors will receive "associate producer" credit, which could mean the end credit roll will be longer than usual. But the filmmakers said the donors saved the movie.
To Learn More Click Here
Most films don't tap into moviegoer wallets until they reach theaters. But Blue Like Jazz, an adaptation of Donald Miller's faith-based book, waged a 30-day campaign that raised $346,000 from 3900 supporters. That allowed the film to overcome a budget shortfall and begin production yesterday in Nashville. Marshall Allman (True Blood) plays the lead role of Miller, Tania Raymonde (Lost) and Justin Welborn (The Crazies) also star. Steve Taylor is directing. The dough was raised through Kickstarter.com, and the flm's backers claim it's the largest crowd-sourced creative project ever. The book is about the author's spiritual journey and the donation campaign started when the author blogged that the movie version of his book would be placed on indefinite hold because an investor fell out for $250,000. Two fans, Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier, created a grassroots save-the-film campaign by launching Savebluelikejazz.com. One of the film's backers agreed to match the amount raised if it got to $125,000. That backer will match the $346,000. That gives the filmmakers an extra $450,000 that will be used for extra shooting days. The total budget of the film is under $5 million. These donors won't get their money back, but there were other incentives. The director has personally called around 300 of the donors so far, and between shots, will be logging phone time until he completes over 1000 thank you calls. Many donors will receive "associate producer" credit, which could mean the end credit roll will be longer than usual. But the filmmakers said the donors saved the movie.
To Learn More Click Here
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Kickstarter has collected more than $20m in pledges
The Q&A: Perry Chen, Kickstarter
Oct 22nd 2010, 16:48 by More Intelligent Life, H.D. | NEW YORK
ARTISTS in need of paint money once had to rely on the largesse of benefactors. But social networking and new models for supporting creativity have turned the web into a modern horn of plenty. Kickstarter, created by Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler, is the largest website dedicated to crowd-funding creative projects. People use the site to pitch specific project ideas, usually using a short self-made video, and aim to collect a target amount of funding over fixed time period, usually about a month. Because the process is free and open to anyone with a project that fits under the company’s inclusive set of guidelines, the diversity of ideas on display is wild.
Kickstarter has collected more than $20m in pledges for people in creative fields such as music, film and design, and has also found success among innovators in food and other areas. Perry Chen, a co-founder of the site, talked to More Intelligent Life about why Kickstarter works and what it means for a growing community of DIY artists.
Kickstarter is a start-up based in New York. What kind of influence does the city's culture have on the company?
Well, I'm born and raised in New York. I’ve lived between New York and New Orleans for the last 16 to 17 years. Other than having a little dream of having a New Orleans office one day, we’ve never considered having it anywhere else. I met Charles and Yancey, my two other co-founders, in New York. New York is also our biggest location for projects. There is definitely a Downtown-New York-Brooklyn creative community that is very much a part of who we are, and also helps us grow out of New York.
What makes Kickstarter different from other crowd-funding platforms?
I wonder if people really know what the definition of crowd-funding is. Or, if there’s even an agreed upon definition of what it is. We haven’t actively supported the use of the term because it can provoke more confusion. In our case, we focus on a middle ground between patronage and commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for becoming backers of a creative project. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing; you are trying to create value for the people who support you. We focus on creative projects—music, film, technology, art, design, food and publishing—and within the category of crowd-funding of the arts, we are probably ten times the size of all of the others combined.
You must receive a huge number of proposals a day. What’s your selection process like?
I would say we receive between one or two hundred new proposals a day, and we have a whole team of people who personally read every single one of them. They will either grant permission to start their project, or give helpful tips, or sometimes say that Kickstarter is not the right place for that specific project. There seems to be a bit of mystery around how our process works, but we’re not making any kind of aesthetic judgments about the quality of the music, or photography, for example. When we decline a project, the overwhelming majority of times it’s because the creator has ignored our guidelines. The system is open. We just ask to have a quick conversation with you beforehand. I don’t even know of the last time we rejected someone who wanted to make a film or record an album. For the most part, if you read our guidelines and your project fits, you’ll get a yes. We’d love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about—whether it’s something small they’d like to do over a weekend with friends, or it’s the film they’ve always wanted to make, whatever. Our goal is to meet everybody at his or her level.
Once funded, are creators obligated to report the progress of their projects? Does accountability to the crowd of backers seem to be a source of concern or motivation?
Just like eBay or Etsy, you are obligated to do what you say you’re going to do—fulfil the limited edition, or create the event or experience that you promised to create—in exchange for someone opening their wallet and backing your project. The interesting thing is that these projects are funded by dozens, hundreds and in some cases thousands of people, but it is never completely anonymous. Within those backers are friends, long-time fans, family members, classmates, people in the gardening club with you. So there’s already a social fabric that’s brought into Kickstarter. The accountability is strengthened because those people are there. When you haven’t finished your book, your friends will buzz in your ear. So it’s two things really: the number of people—a large number of people holding you accountable, and the fact that some of those people are people that are close to you. I think it’s stronger than a feedback system based on scoring, which is not to say those things don’t have value. They do. But we’ve found that this [approach] is so unbelievably powerful.
In a recent study about philanthropy at UC Berkeley, psychologists found that people became more generous when exposed to empathy-eliciting video. What kind of role do you see video playing in Kickstarter’s success?
Video is so primal. When you can hear a person talking about the project, and can see his or her passion, it is unbelievably powerful. I don’t want to make it seem like projects without a video fail. Video projects have higher success rates, but we’ve had amazingly successful projects that don’t include video. What’s important is having a critical amount of supporting material. Without video, maybe you’re linking to your website or portfolio, or maybe you have a strong base of fans or connections within a community. What’s great about video is that it allows you to connect especially with people that don’t already know you. It’s an amazing introduction. So, it’s a more important component for people who want to reach new audiences.
Diaspora, a new open-source social network, has been Kickstarter’s biggest project to date. Their impending launch has been well publicised. What kinds of pressures exist for a business that is crowd-funded?
Well, Diaspora is an interesting project. In general, we don’t allow the funding of businesses. There are food trucks and iPhone apps, but we consider those projects. The creation of a business is an extremely high-risk, long-term event and I think it’s something that we’re staying away from. But Diaspora really fit for us because it’s an open-source project. They had a spectacular amount of press, the kind most people would kill for. Most projects are hidden away and that’s one of the things that attracts people to Kickstarter. It’s not just about the funding; it’s also a way for people to spread the message about their work. I'm not sure whether the number of backers really matters. But the important thing is the expectations that they’ve set. If you go out and create something and say that you’ll give it your college try, I’d like to think the people who supported you would be happy with that. People are quite reasonable when you’re clear about what you’re setting out to accomplish.
Is there potential for Kickstarter to become a place where people come to discover talent, like on YouTube? Any Justin Biebers yet?
No Justin Biebers yet. But apparently, from what I hear, studios and agents have been adding us to lists of sites to check out when looking for talent. And we’re definitely not opposed to that!
Are there any Kickstarter projects that you’re really excited about right now?
There are a few. One is still in funding called Eyewriter. There is a well-known graffiti artist who is now paralysed after being diagnosed with ALS. So a group of people have collaborated to create this head-mounted, eye-tracking device so that he can write digital graffiti with his eyes. They’ve already exceeded their goal of $15,000, but still have a few weeks to go. Another project that just finished raising funds is called Musopen. They are recording and releasing free music without copyrights. They set out to raise $11,000 and ended up raising close to $70,000. The idea just spread like wildfire.
This last project ended back in June, but is especially close to me because of my relationship with New Orleans. It’s called Grassroots Mapping of the Gulf Oil Spill. For one reason or another, it was very difficult to get aerial photos of the spill. So this guy, Jeff Warren from MIT, created a kit for taking pictures using kites and balloons. The software he created pieced together all of the photos, creating an evolving map of the oil spill.
What’s next for Kickstarter? Has the ‘crowd’ pointed the business in any surprising directions?
There are always surprising categories of new projects—very creative open-source software and hardware, and lots of food projects. In general, we’re trying to keep doing what we’re doing, and just doing it better. And in the next year, we should hit $50m pledged through the system, which will be a huge milestone for us.
To Learn More Click Here
Oct 22nd 2010, 16:48 by More Intelligent Life, H.D. | NEW YORK
ARTISTS in need of paint money once had to rely on the largesse of benefactors. But social networking and new models for supporting creativity have turned the web into a modern horn of plenty. Kickstarter, created by Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler, is the largest website dedicated to crowd-funding creative projects. People use the site to pitch specific project ideas, usually using a short self-made video, and aim to collect a target amount of funding over fixed time period, usually about a month. Because the process is free and open to anyone with a project that fits under the company’s inclusive set of guidelines, the diversity of ideas on display is wild.
Kickstarter has collected more than $20m in pledges for people in creative fields such as music, film and design, and has also found success among innovators in food and other areas. Perry Chen, a co-founder of the site, talked to More Intelligent Life about why Kickstarter works and what it means for a growing community of DIY artists.
Kickstarter is a start-up based in New York. What kind of influence does the city's culture have on the company?
Well, I'm born and raised in New York. I’ve lived between New York and New Orleans for the last 16 to 17 years. Other than having a little dream of having a New Orleans office one day, we’ve never considered having it anywhere else. I met Charles and Yancey, my two other co-founders, in New York. New York is also our biggest location for projects. There is definitely a Downtown-New York-Brooklyn creative community that is very much a part of who we are, and also helps us grow out of New York.
What makes Kickstarter different from other crowd-funding platforms?
I wonder if people really know what the definition of crowd-funding is. Or, if there’s even an agreed upon definition of what it is. We haven’t actively supported the use of the term because it can provoke more confusion. In our case, we focus on a middle ground between patronage and commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for becoming backers of a creative project. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing; you are trying to create value for the people who support you. We focus on creative projects—music, film, technology, art, design, food and publishing—and within the category of crowd-funding of the arts, we are probably ten times the size of all of the others combined.
You must receive a huge number of proposals a day. What’s your selection process like?
I would say we receive between one or two hundred new proposals a day, and we have a whole team of people who personally read every single one of them. They will either grant permission to start their project, or give helpful tips, or sometimes say that Kickstarter is not the right place for that specific project. There seems to be a bit of mystery around how our process works, but we’re not making any kind of aesthetic judgments about the quality of the music, or photography, for example. When we decline a project, the overwhelming majority of times it’s because the creator has ignored our guidelines. The system is open. We just ask to have a quick conversation with you beforehand. I don’t even know of the last time we rejected someone who wanted to make a film or record an album. For the most part, if you read our guidelines and your project fits, you’ll get a yes. We’d love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about—whether it’s something small they’d like to do over a weekend with friends, or it’s the film they’ve always wanted to make, whatever. Our goal is to meet everybody at his or her level.
Once funded, are creators obligated to report the progress of their projects? Does accountability to the crowd of backers seem to be a source of concern or motivation?
Just like eBay or Etsy, you are obligated to do what you say you’re going to do—fulfil the limited edition, or create the event or experience that you promised to create—in exchange for someone opening their wallet and backing your project. The interesting thing is that these projects are funded by dozens, hundreds and in some cases thousands of people, but it is never completely anonymous. Within those backers are friends, long-time fans, family members, classmates, people in the gardening club with you. So there’s already a social fabric that’s brought into Kickstarter. The accountability is strengthened because those people are there. When you haven’t finished your book, your friends will buzz in your ear. So it’s two things really: the number of people—a large number of people holding you accountable, and the fact that some of those people are people that are close to you. I think it’s stronger than a feedback system based on scoring, which is not to say those things don’t have value. They do. But we’ve found that this [approach] is so unbelievably powerful.
In a recent study about philanthropy at UC Berkeley, psychologists found that people became more generous when exposed to empathy-eliciting video. What kind of role do you see video playing in Kickstarter’s success?
Video is so primal. When you can hear a person talking about the project, and can see his or her passion, it is unbelievably powerful. I don’t want to make it seem like projects without a video fail. Video projects have higher success rates, but we’ve had amazingly successful projects that don’t include video. What’s important is having a critical amount of supporting material. Without video, maybe you’re linking to your website or portfolio, or maybe you have a strong base of fans or connections within a community. What’s great about video is that it allows you to connect especially with people that don’t already know you. It’s an amazing introduction. So, it’s a more important component for people who want to reach new audiences.
Diaspora, a new open-source social network, has been Kickstarter’s biggest project to date. Their impending launch has been well publicised. What kinds of pressures exist for a business that is crowd-funded?
Well, Diaspora is an interesting project. In general, we don’t allow the funding of businesses. There are food trucks and iPhone apps, but we consider those projects. The creation of a business is an extremely high-risk, long-term event and I think it’s something that we’re staying away from. But Diaspora really fit for us because it’s an open-source project. They had a spectacular amount of press, the kind most people would kill for. Most projects are hidden away and that’s one of the things that attracts people to Kickstarter. It’s not just about the funding; it’s also a way for people to spread the message about their work. I'm not sure whether the number of backers really matters. But the important thing is the expectations that they’ve set. If you go out and create something and say that you’ll give it your college try, I’d like to think the people who supported you would be happy with that. People are quite reasonable when you’re clear about what you’re setting out to accomplish.
Is there potential for Kickstarter to become a place where people come to discover talent, like on YouTube? Any Justin Biebers yet?
No Justin Biebers yet. But apparently, from what I hear, studios and agents have been adding us to lists of sites to check out when looking for talent. And we’re definitely not opposed to that!
Are there any Kickstarter projects that you’re really excited about right now?
There are a few. One is still in funding called Eyewriter. There is a well-known graffiti artist who is now paralysed after being diagnosed with ALS. So a group of people have collaborated to create this head-mounted, eye-tracking device so that he can write digital graffiti with his eyes. They’ve already exceeded their goal of $15,000, but still have a few weeks to go. Another project that just finished raising funds is called Musopen. They are recording and releasing free music without copyrights. They set out to raise $11,000 and ended up raising close to $70,000. The idea just spread like wildfire.
This last project ended back in June, but is especially close to me because of my relationship with New Orleans. It’s called Grassroots Mapping of the Gulf Oil Spill. For one reason or another, it was very difficult to get aerial photos of the spill. So this guy, Jeff Warren from MIT, created a kit for taking pictures using kites and balloons. The software he created pieced together all of the photos, creating an evolving map of the oil spill.
What’s next for Kickstarter? Has the ‘crowd’ pointed the business in any surprising directions?
There are always surprising categories of new projects—very creative open-source software and hardware, and lots of food projects. In general, we’re trying to keep doing what we’re doing, and just doing it better. And in the next year, we should hit $50m pledged through the system, which will be a huge milestone for us.
To Learn More Click Here
Monday, July 19, 2010
Are you a Film Threat?
Nowadays, it seems like everyone is a filmmaker, or has a friend that’s a filmmaker. Everyone’s got that great project in the works, everyone’s going to re-define the state of cinema as we know it… but are they really? Are there any filmmakers or films worthy of being called a true “Film Threat” anymore? We here at Film Threat like to think that those filmmakers and films are out there, and we want to help find even more.
Are you a filmmaker? Are you currently in production and looking for funds via Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or other crowdfunding efforts? Let Film Threat know about your project and, once a week, we’ll showcase one project we deem to be worthy of being a “Certified Film Threat in Progress.”
That’s right, every Monday, starting July 25, 2010, we’re going to feature one film or film-related project in progress that we feel is worth your and our time. From there, it’s up to our passionate, film-hungry and film-savvy readers to decide whether they want to take that extra step to help make these projects in progress a reality. It’s then up to you, the filmmaker, to live up to the faith we’re putting in you and your efforts by giving you such lofty praise as featuring you and your project as a top story on our site (seriously, you want this; studio films and indies alike routinely angle for space and feature stories on our site).
So how to you get featured on Film Threat? How does your project become a “Certified Film Threat in Progress”? Simple, fill out the form below and send it on. We’ll begin reviewing the various projects that come in, and if you tickle our fancy and we find you and your project worthy, you’ll hear from us as we focus our editorial efforts on you and yours...
To Learn More Click Here
Are you a filmmaker? Are you currently in production and looking for funds via Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or other crowdfunding efforts? Let Film Threat know about your project and, once a week, we’ll showcase one project we deem to be worthy of being a “Certified Film Threat in Progress.”
That’s right, every Monday, starting July 25, 2010, we’re going to feature one film or film-related project in progress that we feel is worth your and our time. From there, it’s up to our passionate, film-hungry and film-savvy readers to decide whether they want to take that extra step to help make these projects in progress a reality. It’s then up to you, the filmmaker, to live up to the faith we’re putting in you and your efforts by giving you such lofty praise as featuring you and your project as a top story on our site (seriously, you want this; studio films and indies alike routinely angle for space and feature stories on our site).
So how to you get featured on Film Threat? How does your project become a “Certified Film Threat in Progress”? Simple, fill out the form below and send it on. We’ll begin reviewing the various projects that come in, and if you tickle our fancy and we find you and your project worthy, you’ll hear from us as we focus our editorial efforts on you and yours...
To Learn More Click Here
Net worth: Filmmaker and Hamden native Dennis Peters wants artists to know that the Internet is a great funding tool
By Donna Doherty, Register Arts Editor
ddoherty@newhavenregister.com
Dennis Peters is about to release his first full-length feature film, and he wants to thank you and everyone else who made it possible.
The Hamden native, who splits his time between Santa Monica and New Haven, is one of a growing number of artists using the Internet to fund creative ventures. It’s a source of funding that’s been around for about two years now, but he’s been so happy with his experience that, “I wanted to share it with other artists, because I know a lot of New Haven artists, and I’m not sure everyone knows about it,” he said in the North Branford-based Inner Space Sound Labs of his friend and collaborator Scott Amore.
“New Haven is an arts town. There are so many people I know here that could use this type of crowd funding for their projects. Raising a small amount of money is difficult,” Peters says.
A steady, cooling rain drummed on the roof of the studio, where the two were working on some promotional videos for Dixon Drums of Bloomfield, one of the clients of Peters’ Heavybag Media marketing company in Santa Monica.
When “I’m Not Adam” is released in January, with premieres planned in Los Angeles and New Haven, Peters will have funded $6,000 of the projected $20,000 budget with money from people who found his proposal online on Kickstarter.org, liked what they saw, and coughed up some cash for the venture.
The Manhattan-based Kickstarter.org was founded last year by eMusic director Yancey Strickler and Perry Chen, who recently held their own Kickstarter Film Festival, the invitees selected from the more than 1,500 who’ve created projects using their site.
“I found out about it on Twitter,” says Peters, 53, who is a Hamden High School graduate and has a film degree from the University of Bridgeport. “Four months ago, I saw someone promote their Kickstarter campaign on Twitter. I clicked on and liked what I saw.”
What he saw was a group of creative endeavors looking for angels. “It could be a film, a book, a comic book, a live event. Kickstarter says yea or nay to it. Then you’re on your own. You can record a video explaining what your project is and what you’re doing,” he says.
Each project has a target money goal and shows a time frame in which that money must be raised. Kickstarter helps the clients decide on that time frame, which can span anywhere from 30-90 days.
Investors are encouraged with rewards that vary with the level of the pledge: things like tickets to an opening night, manufactured goods, plaques at sites, first editions.
Right now on Kickstarter, though it’s heavy on funding requests for short films and documentaries, you’ll see community ventures such as “Center Without Walls,” a cultural venture that “will bring arts programming to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city,” a community Ping-Pong table, a cupcake business, a request to help students learn math easier (“Make Math Cool” video) and even a request to provide a haven for geeks, called “Uberdork Cafe: A Dork with a Dream.”
The Amazon.com-backed site has a couple of rules which make it different from some other sites such as IndieGoGo.com. One of those is that if a project doesn’t reach its goal money on Kickstarter, it doesn’t get any of what was raised, so there’s great incentive for the requesters to keep on top of the campaign, and push. Peters estimates he spent “about 6-8 hours a day,” doing just that, with Twitter his favorite networking tool of choice.
“About 50 percent reach their goal, I’m told. But they also say if you reach 25 percent of your funding goal, 90 percent will go on to reach the goal,” Peters says, which he did July 9.
It’s like a whole virtual fund-raising world that also, says Peters, has tremendous additional marketing benefits.
“... Funding is only one reason, and may not be the most important,” says Peters. “What you’re doing is building an audience for your project before you do it. If you get 100 people to invest even $10, those 100 people are invested in part of your project. When you’re done, you have 100 people talking about your project, they’re talking to their friends, putting it on their Facebook page or on Twitter or blogging.
“You’re building a big network, something which can be of greater value than money,” he says. “I have people invested in my film that will get the word out, people who are excited to see the film and who can say ‘I have money in that film.’”
That word-of-mouth buzz is no small deal, considering that, a Reuters article in June noted that, according to Baseline Intelligence, for the past seven years, for “every dollar spent on producing a major film, the studios have been spending 51 cents-58 cents to release and market it in the United States and Canada ...,” which means that “the average 2009 release had to gross $186 million to recoup production and domestic-releasing costs ...”.
That refers to major films, not small, indie projects such as Peters’, but by not having to invest so heavily in marketing (which can be an additional one-third) and by self-distributing, he was able to put the majority of his money into casting, thereby ensuring quality actors for his psychological thriller.
“I’m Not Adam,” which Peters wrote and directed, is the story of an ordinary guy who is mistaken for a celebrity that someone is out to kill. He is pursued through the streets and back alleys of downtown L.A., encountering a number of strangers who may or may not be connected to him. To survive, he decides he has to find his doppelganger.
Peters, who cast all L.A. actors, also has had the benefit of the generosity of friends, like Amore, a well-known New Haven area musician and producer who is donating his time as post-production music supervisor, and will be writing and recording the soundtrack here in the woodsy studio behind the log cabin he shares with his girlfriend; and Robert Sacchetti, a location scout, sound man and actor.
“I could not have made this film without a few key people who agreed to work on the film for no pay,” Peters readily admits.
He and Wallingford native Amore met at the New Haven Film Fest years ago, and were also neighbors in an apartment building as well as in a commercial building on Hamilton Street, where Peters had founded One Black Shoe, a TV commercial production company.
Heavybag Media, which Peters co-founded with his wife, Jackie (whom he married in Edgerton Park with arts maven Cheever Tyler serving as justice of the peace), is an online marketing company which caters primarily to entertainment and technology clients. His best-known are Sun Microsystems, Dixon Drums and Gibraltar Hardware. He films commercials for various clients and still maintains a small office for Heavybag in New Haven. Heavybag also marketed several Warner Bros. recording artists and the 2009 Miramax film “Extract,” starring Jason Bateman.
“I’m Not Adam” will travel to festivals to be determined, and Peters wants to make it available on Netflix, iTunes and DVD.
To Learn More Click Here
ddoherty@newhavenregister.com
Dennis Peters is about to release his first full-length feature film, and he wants to thank you and everyone else who made it possible.
The Hamden native, who splits his time between Santa Monica and New Haven, is one of a growing number of artists using the Internet to fund creative ventures. It’s a source of funding that’s been around for about two years now, but he’s been so happy with his experience that, “I wanted to share it with other artists, because I know a lot of New Haven artists, and I’m not sure everyone knows about it,” he said in the North Branford-based Inner Space Sound Labs of his friend and collaborator Scott Amore.
“New Haven is an arts town. There are so many people I know here that could use this type of crowd funding for their projects. Raising a small amount of money is difficult,” Peters says.
A steady, cooling rain drummed on the roof of the studio, where the two were working on some promotional videos for Dixon Drums of Bloomfield, one of the clients of Peters’ Heavybag Media marketing company in Santa Monica.
When “I’m Not Adam” is released in January, with premieres planned in Los Angeles and New Haven, Peters will have funded $6,000 of the projected $20,000 budget with money from people who found his proposal online on Kickstarter.org, liked what they saw, and coughed up some cash for the venture.
The Manhattan-based Kickstarter.org was founded last year by eMusic director Yancey Strickler and Perry Chen, who recently held their own Kickstarter Film Festival, the invitees selected from the more than 1,500 who’ve created projects using their site.
“I found out about it on Twitter,” says Peters, 53, who is a Hamden High School graduate and has a film degree from the University of Bridgeport. “Four months ago, I saw someone promote their Kickstarter campaign on Twitter. I clicked on and liked what I saw.”
What he saw was a group of creative endeavors looking for angels. “It could be a film, a book, a comic book, a live event. Kickstarter says yea or nay to it. Then you’re on your own. You can record a video explaining what your project is and what you’re doing,” he says.
Each project has a target money goal and shows a time frame in which that money must be raised. Kickstarter helps the clients decide on that time frame, which can span anywhere from 30-90 days.
Investors are encouraged with rewards that vary with the level of the pledge: things like tickets to an opening night, manufactured goods, plaques at sites, first editions.
Right now on Kickstarter, though it’s heavy on funding requests for short films and documentaries, you’ll see community ventures such as “Center Without Walls,” a cultural venture that “will bring arts programming to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city,” a community Ping-Pong table, a cupcake business, a request to help students learn math easier (“Make Math Cool” video) and even a request to provide a haven for geeks, called “Uberdork Cafe: A Dork with a Dream.”
The Amazon.com-backed site has a couple of rules which make it different from some other sites such as IndieGoGo.com. One of those is that if a project doesn’t reach its goal money on Kickstarter, it doesn’t get any of what was raised, so there’s great incentive for the requesters to keep on top of the campaign, and push. Peters estimates he spent “about 6-8 hours a day,” doing just that, with Twitter his favorite networking tool of choice.
“About 50 percent reach their goal, I’m told. But they also say if you reach 25 percent of your funding goal, 90 percent will go on to reach the goal,” Peters says, which he did July 9.
It’s like a whole virtual fund-raising world that also, says Peters, has tremendous additional marketing benefits.
“... Funding is only one reason, and may not be the most important,” says Peters. “What you’re doing is building an audience for your project before you do it. If you get 100 people to invest even $10, those 100 people are invested in part of your project. When you’re done, you have 100 people talking about your project, they’re talking to their friends, putting it on their Facebook page or on Twitter or blogging.
“You’re building a big network, something which can be of greater value than money,” he says. “I have people invested in my film that will get the word out, people who are excited to see the film and who can say ‘I have money in that film.’”
That word-of-mouth buzz is no small deal, considering that, a Reuters article in June noted that, according to Baseline Intelligence, for the past seven years, for “every dollar spent on producing a major film, the studios have been spending 51 cents-58 cents to release and market it in the United States and Canada ...,” which means that “the average 2009 release had to gross $186 million to recoup production and domestic-releasing costs ...”.
That refers to major films, not small, indie projects such as Peters’, but by not having to invest so heavily in marketing (which can be an additional one-third) and by self-distributing, he was able to put the majority of his money into casting, thereby ensuring quality actors for his psychological thriller.
“I’m Not Adam,” which Peters wrote and directed, is the story of an ordinary guy who is mistaken for a celebrity that someone is out to kill. He is pursued through the streets and back alleys of downtown L.A., encountering a number of strangers who may or may not be connected to him. To survive, he decides he has to find his doppelganger.
Peters, who cast all L.A. actors, also has had the benefit of the generosity of friends, like Amore, a well-known New Haven area musician and producer who is donating his time as post-production music supervisor, and will be writing and recording the soundtrack here in the woodsy studio behind the log cabin he shares with his girlfriend; and Robert Sacchetti, a location scout, sound man and actor.
“I could not have made this film without a few key people who agreed to work on the film for no pay,” Peters readily admits.
He and Wallingford native Amore met at the New Haven Film Fest years ago, and were also neighbors in an apartment building as well as in a commercial building on Hamilton Street, where Peters had founded One Black Shoe, a TV commercial production company.
Heavybag Media, which Peters co-founded with his wife, Jackie (whom he married in Edgerton Park with arts maven Cheever Tyler serving as justice of the peace), is an online marketing company which caters primarily to entertainment and technology clients. His best-known are Sun Microsystems, Dixon Drums and Gibraltar Hardware. He films commercials for various clients and still maintains a small office for Heavybag in New Haven. Heavybag also marketed several Warner Bros. recording artists and the 2009 Miramax film “Extract,” starring Jason Bateman.
“I’m Not Adam” will travel to festivals to be determined, and Peters wants to make it available on Netflix, iTunes and DVD.
To Learn More Click Here
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Could the web reinvent film industry economics?
by ANGEL GAMBINO
Last week, my friend and prolific film producer Elliott Kastner passed away. I will miss tea at the Wolseley discussing future models of film financing and bringing my favourite book, When Nietzsche Wept, to the screen. His work was impressive, but his business plan to create an online film financing platform could have changed the fundamentals of film as we know it.
Crowd-funding is not yet a common choice for film producers, due to secrecy around how films are made, financial regulation and the fact that most don’t know how to effectively rally a crowd. The amount available through crowd-funding is too small to influence any film with a budget of over $100,000. Studios aren’t even sure how to use social media to convert marketing into ticket sales.
However, with viral channels and increasing knowledge through companies like Kickstarter and Sellaband in other sectors, we could see models emerge where financial and other incentives, such as your name in the film credits, prove exciting enough for some to pay big sums.
Films are largely financed through multi-party agreements including finance from banks, foreign distribution territories, local government tax credits, emerging and developing markets and, increasingly, high-net-worth individuals. Some investments generate returns of 50-100% and recurring revenue streams from royalties, digital distribution channels and merchandising. One of my favourite films, Saw, cost around $1.2m to produce but raked in $103m. However, fewer than 1% of films make money, and investors are the last to get paid if there is anything left after distributors fees, loan repayments and the like.
There are companies emerging, such as Slated, that are trying to increase access to data, which helps better inform investment decisions. Its CEO Duncan Cork has said: “Without access to data, no investor can expect to beat the 1/100 odds. Unfortunately, studios are notoriously proprietary about their data, and few, if any, investors have access to real data before making investment decisions.”
If these companies succeed in setting up online systems that forecast the likelihood of success for films based on additional audience and relevant data, investors should make better decisions. Certainly, many new digital music businesses are finding the data itself to be their most lucrative area. The combination of online data collection and existing methodologies could broaden the appeal of film financing.
Moreover, online analytics platforms should help films with a higher likelihood of success get the financing they deserve. Given current market conditions, Hollywood and the independent sector might embrace the internet more than ever before if it means additional investment in film. In the future, you might buy a piece of the picture with your popcorn and see your name in the credits.
To Learn More Click Here
Last week, my friend and prolific film producer Elliott Kastner passed away. I will miss tea at the Wolseley discussing future models of film financing and bringing my favourite book, When Nietzsche Wept, to the screen. His work was impressive, but his business plan to create an online film financing platform could have changed the fundamentals of film as we know it.
Crowd-funding is not yet a common choice for film producers, due to secrecy around how films are made, financial regulation and the fact that most don’t know how to effectively rally a crowd. The amount available through crowd-funding is too small to influence any film with a budget of over $100,000. Studios aren’t even sure how to use social media to convert marketing into ticket sales.
However, with viral channels and increasing knowledge through companies like Kickstarter and Sellaband in other sectors, we could see models emerge where financial and other incentives, such as your name in the film credits, prove exciting enough for some to pay big sums.
Films are largely financed through multi-party agreements including finance from banks, foreign distribution territories, local government tax credits, emerging and developing markets and, increasingly, high-net-worth individuals. Some investments generate returns of 50-100% and recurring revenue streams from royalties, digital distribution channels and merchandising. One of my favourite films, Saw, cost around $1.2m to produce but raked in $103m. However, fewer than 1% of films make money, and investors are the last to get paid if there is anything left after distributors fees, loan repayments and the like.
There are companies emerging, such as Slated, that are trying to increase access to data, which helps better inform investment decisions. Its CEO Duncan Cork has said: “Without access to data, no investor can expect to beat the 1/100 odds. Unfortunately, studios are notoriously proprietary about their data, and few, if any, investors have access to real data before making investment decisions.”
If these companies succeed in setting up online systems that forecast the likelihood of success for films based on additional audience and relevant data, investors should make better decisions. Certainly, many new digital music businesses are finding the data itself to be their most lucrative area. The combination of online data collection and existing methodologies could broaden the appeal of film financing.
Moreover, online analytics platforms should help films with a higher likelihood of success get the financing they deserve. Given current market conditions, Hollywood and the independent sector might embrace the internet more than ever before if it means additional investment in film. In the future, you might buy a piece of the picture with your popcorn and see your name in the credits.
To Learn More Click Here
Friday, June 25, 2010
You Too Can Fund a TV Show
In tough economic times, creators have to get a little more creative about funding their projects. Witness the success of Diaspora’s efforts on Kickstarter.com and Jill Sobule’s recent donor-backed album. Filmmakers Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith are now attempting to fund the development of a TV series, Pioneer One, through individual donors. They’ve successfully raised $6,000 for the pilot episode (available on Vodo), and are hoping to raise an additional $20,000 for the next three episodes. (HT: Daniel Gaglio)
To Learn More Click Here
To Learn More Click Here
Kickstarter Conundrum: Money Changes Everything... But What If It Doesn't Let You Change Enough?
Let me start out by saying that I'm a huge fan of what Kickstarter has put in place. They've more or less built up a simple and easy to use platform to allow all kinds of creative folks a way to "fan fund" a variety of projects (music, books, software, performance art, movies, etc...) by using a "tiered" support model. If you're not familiar with the site, it lets people setup a project with a funding "goal" and a deadline. Then, they can set up a series of tiers for how people can fund the project, with promises to get back certain things in response to those tiers. This is the model we've spoken about a few times in the past -- such as what Jill Sobule did a couple years ago to fund her album.
While I definitely believe this sort of model can make a lot of sense in certain areas, I don't think it's right for everyone, and it certainly can create some potential problems -- especially if the content creator doesn't live up to expectations. Kickstarter got a lot of publicity back in May when one of its projects, called Diaspora, for a "distributed" social network got covered in the NY Times at the same time as there was a lot of fuss about privacy concerns on Facebook. That resulted in the project -- which had only been seeking $10,000 to let four college kids work on this project over the summer -- raising over $100,000.
Now, many have looked at this as showing off the power of Kickstarter (though, others might argue it really showed off the power of the NY Times). However, Clay Shirky pointed us to a critique of the Diaspora/Kickstarter "success" that points out that it could actually end up being bad for both Kickstarter and Diaspora:
It is kinda alarming as this pressure to deliver something by the end of the summer something so complex is not necessarily going to help them. The open source community have been trying to develop peer to peer web solutions for ages. There are many reasons why we have not seen a strong distributed social web yet. Some of these reasons are technical, other are social, it's not impossible, but also not trivial.
It is not unlikely that Diaspora would fail to deliver on it's promised milestone by the end of the summer. This should not be a big deal for an Open Source project with developers scratching their own itch. But in this case, the Facebook users frustration, Diaspora's media attention and the actual $$$,$$$ make this an itch shared by many many more users and only 4 students are given the scratcher.
To some extent, I also wonder if the research Daniel Pink talks about in Drive can also come into play. By adding more money to the mix, it may actually make it more difficult for the developers to build something as good as they might have otherwise. Now they have so many more expectations and so much more attention that it makes it that much more difficult to live up to expectations, even if they actually can achieve what they initially set out to achieve.
The other thing that might make this tricky is the same point I've made a bunch of times about the difference between ideas and execution. One of the things you quickly learn at a startup is that the initial idea is meaningless. Once you get to work on executing, that idea will change daily (if not more often). You may have a general idea, but reality gets in the way, and you adjust and adjust and adjust. Often, what comes out in the end is entirely different than what you set out to do, but that might not be a problem. It's quite rare for a project to set out towards a specific point and end up at that point.
For most startups, there's flexibility there. As the execution happens, they can shift course along the way. But in a situation like this, where thousands of people have donated with specific expectations, changing course is difficult, if not impossible, even if it turns out to be the most important thing for the project itself. If they do change course along the way, for the good of the project, suddenly people may get upset about a sort of "bait-and-switch." This doesn't mean that I don't like the Kickstarter model in general. But I can see where it could cause trouble in certain situations. For things like an album, where the deliverables are clear and understandable, it can work fine. But for a software development project, it could be a lot more complex, and there can be some serious pitfalls. Combine that with having a project massively overfunded, and it could lead to trouble.
To Learn More Click Here
While I definitely believe this sort of model can make a lot of sense in certain areas, I don't think it's right for everyone, and it certainly can create some potential problems -- especially if the content creator doesn't live up to expectations. Kickstarter got a lot of publicity back in May when one of its projects, called Diaspora, for a "distributed" social network got covered in the NY Times at the same time as there was a lot of fuss about privacy concerns on Facebook. That resulted in the project -- which had only been seeking $10,000 to let four college kids work on this project over the summer -- raising over $100,000.
Now, many have looked at this as showing off the power of Kickstarter (though, others might argue it really showed off the power of the NY Times). However, Clay Shirky pointed us to a critique of the Diaspora/Kickstarter "success" that points out that it could actually end up being bad for both Kickstarter and Diaspora:
It is kinda alarming as this pressure to deliver something by the end of the summer something so complex is not necessarily going to help them. The open source community have been trying to develop peer to peer web solutions for ages. There are many reasons why we have not seen a strong distributed social web yet. Some of these reasons are technical, other are social, it's not impossible, but also not trivial.
It is not unlikely that Diaspora would fail to deliver on it's promised milestone by the end of the summer. This should not be a big deal for an Open Source project with developers scratching their own itch. But in this case, the Facebook users frustration, Diaspora's media attention and the actual $$$,$$$ make this an itch shared by many many more users and only 4 students are given the scratcher.
To some extent, I also wonder if the research Daniel Pink talks about in Drive can also come into play. By adding more money to the mix, it may actually make it more difficult for the developers to build something as good as they might have otherwise. Now they have so many more expectations and so much more attention that it makes it that much more difficult to live up to expectations, even if they actually can achieve what they initially set out to achieve.
The other thing that might make this tricky is the same point I've made a bunch of times about the difference between ideas and execution. One of the things you quickly learn at a startup is that the initial idea is meaningless. Once you get to work on executing, that idea will change daily (if not more often). You may have a general idea, but reality gets in the way, and you adjust and adjust and adjust. Often, what comes out in the end is entirely different than what you set out to do, but that might not be a problem. It's quite rare for a project to set out towards a specific point and end up at that point.
For most startups, there's flexibility there. As the execution happens, they can shift course along the way. But in a situation like this, where thousands of people have donated with specific expectations, changing course is difficult, if not impossible, even if it turns out to be the most important thing for the project itself. If they do change course along the way, for the good of the project, suddenly people may get upset about a sort of "bait-and-switch." This doesn't mean that I don't like the Kickstarter model in general. But I can see where it could cause trouble in certain situations. For things like an album, where the deliverables are clear and understandable, it can work fine. But for a software development project, it could be a lot more complex, and there can be some serious pitfalls. Combine that with having a project massively overfunded, and it could lead to trouble.
To Learn More Click Here
Monday, June 21, 2010
O.C. startup tries crowdsourcing to raise money
When a couple of Orange County computer experts starting looking for money to create a social media platform for cooks, the response from investors and lenders was less than enthusiastic. In fact, it was non existent.
So former UC Irvine computer science major Daniel Quach and IT manager Sophorn Tim turned to a nontraditional fund-raising tool that couldn't exist without the Internet. They posted their pitch on Kickstarter.
Kickstarter, a 14-month-old website, allows people to post for up to 90 days a description of their creative project or business venture and how much money they need to do it.
Those who raise the money they need pay Kickstarter; those who don't pay nothing.
Quach and Tim's concept is HowCookingWorks.com based in Garden Grove. Their goal is to raise $25,000 in 45 days ending 1 a.m. July 27.
The idea is to let HowCookingWorks participants to upload recipes, videos, cooking classes and ask questions or share information about cooking. Instruction might be as simple as how to use a paring knift to step-by-step preparation of specific recipes.
"When I had to learn to cook, it was hard," Quach said. "There are a lot of recipe sites out there but they don't reach you how to cook. When I tried to follow a recipe's instructions, it didn't turn out the way it was planned.
"A social network for cooking can draw people who want to learn and people who know how and want to share with others. They can learn about food, learn from others and build strong bonds with other cooks."
Quach quit his job to create the beta site for HowCookingWorks.com. Quach grew up in Santa Ana and Tim grew up in Long Beach.
Angel investors were unmoved by the idea, Quach said. "It was humbling. They said unless you can prove your model, they wouldn't invest. They wanted to see guaranteed returns on their money."
To attract pledges to their Kickstarter effort, Quach and Tim are offering goodies for each pledge. For example:
* A $5 pledge gets Quach's DVD "How to Cook Asian Food"
* $25 gets the DVD, and a Forschner paring knife
* $200 gets the DVD, two Forschner paring knives, a 10-inch Forschner chef knife and a HowCookingWorks branded apron
* $500 gets all the above plus a second edition DVD of How to Cook Asian Food, an 8-inch Forschner chef knife and knife sharpener.
As of Saturday, 22 supporters had pledged $665 with 37 days to go.
To Learn More Click Here
So former UC Irvine computer science major Daniel Quach and IT manager Sophorn Tim turned to a nontraditional fund-raising tool that couldn't exist without the Internet. They posted their pitch on Kickstarter.
Kickstarter, a 14-month-old website, allows people to post for up to 90 days a description of their creative project or business venture and how much money they need to do it.
Those who raise the money they need pay Kickstarter; those who don't pay nothing.
Quach and Tim's concept is HowCookingWorks.com based in Garden Grove. Their goal is to raise $25,000 in 45 days ending 1 a.m. July 27.
The idea is to let HowCookingWorks participants to upload recipes, videos, cooking classes and ask questions or share information about cooking. Instruction might be as simple as how to use a paring knift to step-by-step preparation of specific recipes.
"When I had to learn to cook, it was hard," Quach said. "There are a lot of recipe sites out there but they don't reach you how to cook. When I tried to follow a recipe's instructions, it didn't turn out the way it was planned.
"A social network for cooking can draw people who want to learn and people who know how and want to share with others. They can learn about food, learn from others and build strong bonds with other cooks."
Quach quit his job to create the beta site for HowCookingWorks.com. Quach grew up in Santa Ana and Tim grew up in Long Beach.
Angel investors were unmoved by the idea, Quach said. "It was humbling. They said unless you can prove your model, they wouldn't invest. They wanted to see guaranteed returns on their money."
To attract pledges to their Kickstarter effort, Quach and Tim are offering goodies for each pledge. For example:
* A $5 pledge gets Quach's DVD "How to Cook Asian Food"
* $25 gets the DVD, and a Forschner paring knife
* $200 gets the DVD, two Forschner paring knives, a 10-inch Forschner chef knife and a HowCookingWorks branded apron
* $500 gets all the above plus a second edition DVD of How to Cook Asian Food, an 8-inch Forschner chef knife and knife sharpener.
As of Saturday, 22 supporters had pledged $665 with 37 days to go.
To Learn More Click Here
Friday, June 18, 2010
SCORE column: Source the crowd for business strategies
When a SCORE client needed a business name, students of Paul Lotto, a SCORE volunteer and marketing/business teacher at Ashwaubenon High School, put together a list of creative possibilities. We didn't realize it at the time, but this was a prime example of crowdsourcing, one of the newest and cheapest business strategies.
Crowdsourcing allows an entrepreneur to complete projects or jobs inexpensively by leveraging groups of people to come up with solutions.
Using LinkedIn, a member of the Marketing and PR Innovators Group started an online discussion.
"Please help me come up with a tagline for my music company," Jeff Gold requested. "The name of my company is Jeff Gold Music, and I compose and produce music that is great for relaxation. I'm not quite as good with words and I have struggled with a good tagline."
In response, ideas have been coming in for months. In fact, more than 350 people have responded with their recommendations. There are so many good taglines that it will be difficult for Gold to select the best. What he has done is obtain exceptional assistance at no cost. The savings are huge.
This is just one of the strategies that can be employed. There are some sites that help entrepreneurs get their businesses going without the cost of employees. Some to consider include:
99 Designs: This site offers graphic design work to a broad network of artists and designer who compete to submit the best idea. The entrepreneur offers a payment price for the best logo and picks a favorite from the submissions.
Kickstarter: This is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, and more. You name the amount of money you need to do something; people in turn pledge amounts in support of this project or business. If you receive enough pledges, your donors' payments are processed and you receive the full amount.
TopCoder: Runs competitions with prizes that enable participants to compete for the best software, development and employment services solutions.
Trada: A search engine marketing and optimization company that lets the crowd pick the best keywords for your company or campaign.
Jigsaw: Provides leads in the industries you are targeting by allowing you to upload contact information in exchange for the ability to download other people's contact information.
LiveOps: If you aren't ready to hire sales people, this company specializes in call center outsourcing.
InnoCentive: As your business grows, this company allows you to outsource research and development to discover the latest new product or service.
Samasource: A socially responsible site, this will enable your business to send microtasks to youth, refugees, and women in developing countries.
To Learn More Click Here
Crowdsourcing allows an entrepreneur to complete projects or jobs inexpensively by leveraging groups of people to come up with solutions.
Using LinkedIn, a member of the Marketing and PR Innovators Group started an online discussion.
"Please help me come up with a tagline for my music company," Jeff Gold requested. "The name of my company is Jeff Gold Music, and I compose and produce music that is great for relaxation. I'm not quite as good with words and I have struggled with a good tagline."
In response, ideas have been coming in for months. In fact, more than 350 people have responded with their recommendations. There are so many good taglines that it will be difficult for Gold to select the best. What he has done is obtain exceptional assistance at no cost. The savings are huge.
This is just one of the strategies that can be employed. There are some sites that help entrepreneurs get their businesses going without the cost of employees. Some to consider include:
99 Designs: This site offers graphic design work to a broad network of artists and designer who compete to submit the best idea. The entrepreneur offers a payment price for the best logo and picks a favorite from the submissions.
Kickstarter: This is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, and more. You name the amount of money you need to do something; people in turn pledge amounts in support of this project or business. If you receive enough pledges, your donors' payments are processed and you receive the full amount.
TopCoder: Runs competitions with prizes that enable participants to compete for the best software, development and employment services solutions.
Trada: A search engine marketing and optimization company that lets the crowd pick the best keywords for your company or campaign.
Jigsaw: Provides leads in the industries you are targeting by allowing you to upload contact information in exchange for the ability to download other people's contact information.
LiveOps: If you aren't ready to hire sales people, this company specializes in call center outsourcing.
InnoCentive: As your business grows, this company allows you to outsource research and development to discover the latest new product or service.
Samasource: A socially responsible site, this will enable your business to send microtasks to youth, refugees, and women in developing countries.
To Learn More Click Here
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Social Enterprise: 'Diaspora' Crowdsources $200,000
Diaspora, the pro-privacy social network and social enterprise being built as an alternative to Facebook by four NYU classmates, announced today that it has been able to crowdsource its goal of $200,000 in first-round funding via Kickstarter.
The group, which announced its project April 24 amid Facebook's privacy brouhaha, gave itself 39 days to raise $10,000 using the online fundraising site. The group reached its $10,000 goal in 12 days, and today, the group announced it was able to raise all of the money it sought -- some $200,000, plus an additional $642, from 6,479 people (including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg).
[Diaspora software aims to let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, so users can control who-sees-what about their private data. Diaspora will provide the same functionality as Facebook, the group says, but it won't rely on centralized servers.]
According to Max Salzberg, 22, one of the four co-founders, the group began its work on the project in April, after hearing Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor, describe social networks as a form of "(corporate) spying for free." In recent weeks, Diaspora has become a buzz magnet, receiving mainstream media coverage and attracting nearly 29,000 followers on Twitter. [See fellow blogger Audrey Watter's recent piece on Diaspora here.]
The news is significant for the social enterprise sector, in that it proves that it's possible raise startup capital online for popular projects. Diaspora isn't the only "un-Facebook" social network that is being developed amid privacy concerns. Appleseed and OneSocialWeb also have been working on alternatives.
What do you think? Is crowdsourcing a realistic alternative for new social startups? Let us hear from you.
To Learn More Click Here
The group, which announced its project April 24 amid Facebook's privacy brouhaha, gave itself 39 days to raise $10,000 using the online fundraising site. The group reached its $10,000 goal in 12 days, and today, the group announced it was able to raise all of the money it sought -- some $200,000, plus an additional $642, from 6,479 people (including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg).
[Diaspora software aims to let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, so users can control who-sees-what about their private data. Diaspora will provide the same functionality as Facebook, the group says, but it won't rely on centralized servers.]
According to Max Salzberg, 22, one of the four co-founders, the group began its work on the project in April, after hearing Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor, describe social networks as a form of "(corporate) spying for free." In recent weeks, Diaspora has become a buzz magnet, receiving mainstream media coverage and attracting nearly 29,000 followers on Twitter. [See fellow blogger Audrey Watter's recent piece on Diaspora here.]
The news is significant for the social enterprise sector, in that it proves that it's possible raise startup capital online for popular projects. Diaspora isn't the only "un-Facebook" social network that is being developed amid privacy concerns. Appleseed and OneSocialWeb also have been working on alternatives.
What do you think? Is crowdsourcing a realistic alternative for new social startups? Let us hear from you.
To Learn More Click Here
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