Kickathon
Sometimes things just work out.
In a stroke of fortuitous timing, the day after our Kickstarter project went live, I was invited to an interesting, and one of a kind Kickstarter event. Well, technically I was invited to it 8 hours before the project went live, but whatever.
The point is, I’m posting so early today because this event starts early. Jeff McCord of Fargoal fame, and creator of the Fargoal 2 project I covered last week decided he wanted to get together as many Kickstarter types as he could, and have a 24 hour, all day telethon like conversation with these creators. I find the idea to be audacious and compelling, but to put it all together with such speed was very impressive.
If you want details on this party, then step into my office…
The Wardenclyffe Horror Kickstarter Project is Live
I’ll save the fanfare for tomorrow’s post, but the project is live.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caffeineforge/the-wardenclyffe-horror
5,000 Words (or their Equivalent)
The Wardenclyffe Horror, Page 49
Monday was practically Christmas morning around here. Why is that you ask? Because Robert sent over final version’s of art for the five pages we needed to start our Kickstarting project. And they are amazing. The project is almost upon us loyal readers – but for now – I give you the art! (For larger resolution images, click on each picture provided.)
I’m a Backer: Blackspace – Plan. Dig. Defend. Survive.
Welcome to the sixth installment of your favorite weekly column, “I’m a Backer.” To date four of the previous five projects we have discussed have funded successfully (some very successfully), with last week’s contender currently just above the halfway mark. If you are a mobile gamer, I encourage you to stop by and give it a second look. While I understand that not every project I back can be successful, it would be a shame if I missed … I mean, if all of us missed out on the opportunity to play this wonderful game.
This week we continue with another video game, Blackspace. Whereas the last video game we covered was a beautiful retro game brought forward into the modern age, this week’s fabulous project is straight from the future. This re-imagined RTS brought to you by PixelFoundry, is as sleek and modern as they come. Straddling some boundaries tastefully, while shattering others entirely, it is a feature-rich breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale genre that has been dominated by a few aging dynasties. Intrigued?
If you want details, follow me.
My name is David, and I have a Kickstarting Problem
Like the proverbial kid in the candy store, my eyes have been bigger than my mouth since I found Kickstarter. Over the last year I have backed 40 projects on it, and 1 on Indiegogo. I don’t have a problem or anything… I can quit anytime I want…
Yeah, right. Though I don’t think it is likely to be a diagnosable disease any time soon, Crowdfundosis is certainly spreading. I as I have covered in previous articles, the ranks of people funding the dreams of others have swelled so much, that recently Kickstarter had to reiterate that their website was not a store.
What I want to talk about to today is a combination of both what I fund, and why I fund it.
Kickstarter: Tracking your Favorites
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my life is pretty busy. Between work, the commute, and everything else that needs to get done (like writing this blog) there isn’t a lot of time left over. One of the great advantages of the modern age is that we can do so much more because of the effciencies involved in wireless-digital-multitasking-everything. Per Jevon’s paradox though, the more efficient we get with our time, the more we will use it.
So with all that going on, who has the time to go out and flip through Kickstarter, looking for an awesome project or two to support. With the volume of projects increasing so rapidly (3462 vs 3409 a week ago) it is harder than ever to keep track of the ones you like, let alone find them in the first place. Well, I have a couple tips for you to help you stay engaged, even in the chaos of your busy life.
Taking the Plunge (Part 1)
It may be apparent to our readership that Caffeineforge has an interest in things Kickstarter. Though David and I have worked on creative projects together for quite sometime, the crowd-funding renaissance has afforded us an opportunity we could have scarcely imagined when we started writing together what seems like ages ago. Back then, we talked about saving our pennies to publish out of pocket, or that maybe we’d get a break, and that somewhere, someone with some clout would read something we wrote, pound on their desk, and exclaim to their assistant, “I want to see these guys in my office on Monday!” In that version of the story we discuss movie rights, points on the backend, condos in Malibu. We become rich and (somewhat) famous. We drive down Mulholland in very nice cars, very fast. We join the creative elite.
Needless to say, things didn’t quite go in that direction.
Kickstarter vs Indiegogo
There are a variety of crowdfunding platforms inhabiting the internet these days. Wikipedia currently lists over 40 sites, actually. Prior to looking up this fact, I would have said that there were maybe a dozen and I would have based that on actually visiting only about half a dozen Like any ecological niche though, it will be filled to bursting. Especially when there is this much money involved.
The reason most of you have never heard of so many of these sites is because they are very niche. The first crowd funding website, ArtistShare, started in 2000 actually, back in the roaring bubble days. Most of the early crowdfunding site’s were very niche, going after limited passionate constituencies. This trend continues to this day. There are sites devoted to music, art, books, community projects, charity, politics, and even breast implants. That’s right, breast implants.
As interesting as some of those discussions might be, today I want to talk about the big two: Indiegogo and Kickstarter.
Measuring Success
Blogs. The internet is littered with the corpses of fallen. Often, you can look through their remains voyeuristicly to see whether they died a slow death, as updates came further and further apart, or if they were murdered one afternoon as a stream of regular posts came to a swift end, never to be continued. It’s one thing to watch a blog waste away to nothing but quite another to watch it die suddenly in the prime of its life.
We’re all friends right? Let’s be honest here, everyone has killed at least one blog. I started early, letting a couple long running Livejournals fade away, before moving on to a failed blogger, and aborted World of Warcraft blog, and even one on tiny houses that never really got started. We’ve all been there.
The Power of Publicity
As this blog gains momentum, and the date of our Kickstarter project launch grows ever closer, I find myself spending more and more time conducting research relevant to both. It’s amazing how a person can be, not just lacking in knowledge on a new subject, but completely ignorant to the subject’s existence. Concepts like search engine optimization, calls to action, and carefully selected ad-words are not something that would have made it into my bed time reading until very recently. As with all business ventures, your project’s success hinges on whether or not it gets the attention of your fans – whether it can differentiate itself from the pack and rise above as the week’s viral phenomenon. I’ve discussed the factors that I think are important, often and at length. I’ve given data to support my conclusions in several posts. Today, I would like to offer you a couple of pictures that point to publicity as the smoking gun. Intrigued? Read on.
Caffeineforge 