The prospect of shaving oneself with a laser is, in theory, unfathomably cool. That’s what made the Skarp razor an incredibly successful project on Kickstarter before the platform canceled the campaign due to the apparent lack of a working prototype. Was that really true? How well would the razor work for an unbiased observer? CNET sent a reporter and his arm hair to find out. [More]
crowdfunding
Cooler Raises $13.3M On Kickstarter, Tries To Sell More On Amazon Before Shipping To All Backers
By 11.19.15
Last August, one of the most financially successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time concluded. It was a cooler called the Coolest, which was pricey but promised to contain most of what you need for a beach party. $300 backers were supposed to receive the Coolest, which would retail for $500. Then backers noticed that the product was available on Amazon’s crowdfunded products section… even though original backers from over a year ago hadn’t received theirs yet. [More]
Indiegogo And Brookstone To Team Up To Make Even More Cool, Useless Gadgets
By 11.16.15
In decades past, if you wanted to find gadgets that solve problems you never realized existed until just now, you had to leave your house and go to a Brookstone store, or send away for a catalog. Today, you can surf gadgets that are so fresh that they don’t really exist yet on crowdfunding sites, and Brookstone is teaming up with crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to give inventors logistical support, and perhaps improve Brookstone’s pipeline of fresh new ideas. [More]
Laser Razor Raises $4 Million, Gets Kicked Off Kickstarter For Maybe Not Existing
By 10.13.15
Hey, remember how a few years ago, Kickstarter changed their rules to require that all hardware projects funded through the platform actually exist in a working form? Late last night, Kickstarter enforced that policy on a campaign that had already raised $4 million. Kickstarter administrators apparently didn’t believe that the product, which promises a “shaving revolution,” exists yet as promised. [More]
YotaPhone 2 Cancels U.S. Version, Offers Refunds Instead
By 7.31.15
It’s easy to understand why gadget fans were interested in the Yotaphone 2: it’s an Android smartphone with a regular touchscreen on the front and an e-ink display that can display widgets or function as a power-saving regular screen on the back. When the company behind the phone announced in May that a U.S. version compatible with our LTE networks here in the US would become available, lots of people stepped up to place orders, including reader Steve. [More]
Amazon Debuts Launchpad, A Store Showcasing Crowdfunded Products
By 7.28.15
From books to mini-tanks, Amazon might be a one-stop-online-shop for just about anything consumers could desire, and with the unveiling of its new platform, Launchpad, the e-tailer is now gunning to be the one-stop-marketing-and-distribution center for startups. [More]
Indiegogo Campaign To Bail Out Greece Has Raised $1.65 Million… Only $1.77 Billion To Go
By 7.2.15
With Greece facing such a dire debt crisis that it recently shut down the country’s banking system in order to keep money from flooding out across its borders, it’s going to take a massive effort to get the country back on solid financial footing. And in this day and age of crowdfunding, why not try to raise a couple of billion dollars online? [More]
FTC Announces First-Ever Settlement Over A Failed Crowdfunded Project
By 6.11.15
Today is an important date in the histories of both consumer protection and crowdfunding: For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission took legal action against someone who used Kickstarter to fund a project that they didn’t produce. That’s the good news. The bad news is that since the man behind the scheme has no money to distribute to backers, the settlement doesn’t actually do anything for people who backed The Doom That Came To Atlantic City. [More]
Google’s New “Contributor” Feature Lets You Pay Sites In Exchange For No Ads
By 11.20.14
Taking a cue from the world of smartphone apps, where users can either get a free version that includes ads or pay a premium to get an ad-free experience, Google has announced a new product — Google Contributions, which will allow users to pay participating sites in exchange for not being bombarded with ads. [More]
Know Your Crowdfunding Platforms: Missions, Fees, And Rules
By 9.30.14
You have an idea, or you have an urgent financial need, and you want to turn to the Internet to make funding happen. Or let’s say some acquaintance is asking for money on Facebook for what seems like a cool project or worthy cause, but you wonder: what the heck is an “indie go go?” Why is the site itself asking me for a donation, too? [More]
Kickstarter: Project Backers Must Get Rewards (But Leave Us Out Of It)
By 9.19.14
When you pledge your money to a Kickstarter project, you do so knowing that you won’t actually be charged unless the project reaches its funding goal. While that protects against an unfundable project from running off with your money, what about those projects that reached their goal but still don’t deliver the promised rewards? [More]
Is It Cool To Make Mutual Kickstarter Pledge Agreements With Other Campaigns?
By 9.3.14
Reader Maxim is running a campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter right now to print up some really cool playing cards. Yet he didn’t contact us to ask us to write about his project: we don’t normally post about items in the crowdfunding phase, anyway. He was concerned about a message he received from another Kickstarter campaign creator, who was asking him to swap pledges to artificially inflate each other’s totals. [More]
There Will Apparently Be A Dogecoin-Sponsored NASCAR Driver
By 3.26.14
While Bitcoin gets all the headlines (and even a questionable magazine cover), it’s not the only cryptocurrency in existence. Dogecoin is a relative newcomer in the field, but it has enough fans on Reddit that they were able to raise funds to get the currency’s brand slapped on a NASCAR vehicle. [More]
The Instacube: Kickstarter Success, Real-World Disaster
By 3.11.14
Do you remember, back in August of 2012, when the Instacube took Kickstarter by storm? The product is a square digital picture frame that connects to the Internet and is shaped like the Instagram logo. The product was a hit on the crowdfunding site, raising more than $600,000 and pre-selling a bunch of cubes. Which were supposed to arrive in backers’ hands in the spring of 2013. Only it didn’t. Why? [More]
Kickstarter Isn’t A Store, But These People Still Want Their iPods
By 12.11.13
Earlier this year, Kickstarter made some changes to the way they deal with campaigns to fund new types of hardware. Most importantly, the product has to actually exist. But what happens when the Kickstarted project is obsolete before it even ships? [More]
Who’s Behind The $100,000 Lit Motors Kickstarter Campaign? Not Lit Motors
By 9.10.13 — Updated: 9.11.13
The C-1 from Lit Motors sounds like the perfect commuting vehicle: a small and zippy gyroscopic motorcycle that runs on electricity, and is enclosed and climate-controlled like a car. The first models hit the road in 2014, but you can reserve one of the first ones now, before the dealerships even open, by contributing $500 that will serve as your deposit to the C-1 Design Team’s Kickstarter campaign. Only the company says that they aren’t behind the campaign. Who is? Update: the campaign is down. Yay! [More]
