Interesting Links for 21-09-2012

[andrewducker]

• MSPs hear UK welfare reforms are forcing a blind man to beg. (And the assessments are full of lies)
  (tags: uk welfare disabilities )
• The people tattooed with ads for websites that no longer exist.
  (tags: tattoos adverts web )
• Mobile phones and wireless networks: No evidence of health risk found
  (tags: phones health wireless

Comments

[reverancepavane]

This is a tightening of their proscription a few months back, which classified multiple quantities on offer to a maximum of ten items for any project. [This was fairly important for a number of projects, as they also wanted to offer their customary retail outlets the opportunity to get in on the Kickstarter as well.] Admittedly this is in the Hardware and Design categories, which is where people do seem to be getting burned the most.

I know a couple of successful Kickstarters that have closely skirted the edges of Kickstarter's ban on pure research or company development. For example the Pathfinder's MMO was technically to produce a demo film for the planned MMO project - in reality it was a development project with no real item offered for sale, and there was much discussion on the legality of that project under the terms of service in various forums. And, especially with the recent relaxation of US investment laws, there are far better sites to do that sort of thing now available (although they don't have the popularity of Kickstarter).

Personally I suspect Kickstarter works best as "Kickfinisher." In other words, we have this product that we actually want to produce and need to raise the manufacturing cost to do so. Beneath that are those projects that require support to complete (for example, a book that may require artwork, as well as actual production of product).

I do think the single-item only is restrictive, especially if it's something where getting multiple items for your own use actually makes sense. But I suppose you could also call it a set. However a number of projects have gotten around this restriction by having bonus items on offer that are not actually part of the reward pledge. So increase your pledge by +$35 to get an extra copy of the book, or +$5 for an extra die. I can see hardware projects doing the same thing, or even offering extra product outside the auspices of Kickstarter (a number of projects are advertising Paypal addresses for support these days).

I do think they should change there restriction of product renders to one where product renders must be accompanied by images of the prototype. Then again, as people have mentioned, it's relatively easy to get a mock-up built that would be indistinguishable from a working prototype (assuming you have the money in the first place to pay for the industrial designer to create the product look in the first case).

Interesting times.

[cartesiandaemon]

Ah! Thank you.