indiegogo
Latest
Triposo Travel Belt vibrates to help you locate attractions (video)
A decade ago, all but the most connected of travelers would leave phones and other devices at home, opting instead to plan visits to restaurants, museums and other tourist sites from a paperback book. Now, with mobile data and services like KeepGo enabling cheap roaming when you're abroad, there's more incentive to bring those gadgets along, powering exploration in real time with crowdsourced recommendations from a mobile app. One such application, however, will soon employ an unusual solution that'll let you keep your handset tucked away, without wandering astray. The Triposo Travel Belt communicates with a companion app through a wired connection -- developers opted for a standard 3.5mm cable that plugs into a headphone jack, rather than Bluetooth, keeping things simple and maximizing compatibility. After you select a destination, the app will push directions through the headphone jack to four vibration motors, which activate based on your orientation and the direction of your destination. The belt will vibrate in the front, back, or either side to guide you to a pre-selected address or POI. There's a working prototype out and about, but the creators need some cash to get the belt to production. You can help with a $30 $50 Indiegogo pledge, which should get you a Travel Belt in hand by February. There's a demo video, too, posted after the break. Update: Since going live with its Indiegogo page, the company has raised the price of the belt from $30 to $50.
Zivix PUC gets MIDI instruments talking wirelessly to iOS and PCs (video)
Zivix promised wireless freedom to iOS-loving guitarists when it unveiled the JamStik; today, it's extending that liberty to a much wider range of musicians. Its just-announced PUC peripheral connects most any MIDI instrument to iOS devices, Macs and Windows PCs through a direct WiFi link. The device works with many CoreMIDI-capable apps, and it takes power through either a micro-USB source or a pair of AA batteries. Zivix plans to sell the PUC for $129 in December, although you'll get a price break if you reserve early -- the company is running a crowdfunding campaign that lets early adopters pay between $69 to $99 for a regular model.
Crowdfund Bookie Quarterly Report: Looks can be deceiving
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter are golden tickets to over $100,000. At least, that's what one might surmise when looking at the results from projects tracked during the months of June through August. A total of $11,371,468 funded 84 projects during the quarter, and while that averages out to $135,375 earned per project, the numbers are painting a skewed picture, one more positive than the truth. As discussed in August's report, there are times in which extreme samples from top earners like Hex and Massive Chalice can skew the resulting numbers, affecting our perception of how evenly spread these monthly totals are. The mean average of funding for projects in the last quarter is $135,375, but the median, or middle data point in the set, is $27,753. Analyzing both the mean and median averages indicates that the data is positively skewed, being severely affected by a few projects that made millions of dollars. It tells us that crowdfunded projects may truly earn less on average than at first glance. It might also tell future project creators that aiming for the mean average as a funding goal may be projecting their earnings too high, based on recent history. This translates to the average pledge per person as well. The mean average pledge per person in the quarter's projects is $50.59, while the median is $32.35. This indicates that your average crowdfunding backer probably spent closer to $32 than $50 on any given project. Millions of dollars didn't just fund 84 games in this quarter of the year either, as $6,046,567 of that money was beyond the combined crowdfunding goals of the projects. That means 53.17 percent of money pledged to successful crowdfunding initiatives between June and August was in excess, funding additional content and reaching stretch goals for additional platform support. Still, crowdfunders looking to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from their video game project should be better prepared to earn closer to $20,000, and would be wise to adjust their goals accordingly. This is just our first quarter of tracking crowdfunding trends, so expect more analysis as the year continues. Head past the break to see the quarter's top ten projects, its breakdown by genre and pretty charts with the results from the last three months.
Gunlord hits Indiegogo to fund 3DS, Wii U ports
NG:DEV.TEAM launched Gunlord in 2012 for Dreamcast and Neo Geo, and now it's looking to bring the game to actual modern platforms. The developer recently announced an Indiegogo campaign to fund 3DS and Wii U ports, seeking 40,000€ ($52,616) by October 6. Inspired by games like Turrican, Gunlord is a side-scrolling shooter with 10 stages and 45 types of enemies. The game features a retro-inspired, 16-bit art style and promises 60 frames per second, non-linear action. Providing the game is successfully funded, it will launch on both the Wii U and 3DS eShops in 2014 in North America, Europe, Australia and Canada. [Thanks, Jonathan!]
Crowdfund Bookie August 2013: Extreme samples
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Crowdfunding is full of extreme samples. For every handful of projects that earn a few thousand dollars, games like Hex, Massive Chalice and Torment: Tides of Numenera count their earnings in the millions. These games are rare, and not only can they color our perception of crowdfunding, but can also have a major impact on the numbers behind it. Last month's data compiled for successfully-funded projects says as much. August's 29 successful projects raised $2,976,550, but after taking away the month's biggest earner in turn-based strategy game Warmachine: Tactics, the other 28 projects that ended during the month hauled in just $1,397,600. Warmachine: Tactics received $1,028,950 over its funding goal as well. While the month's total amount raised is 53.19 percent over the projects' combined goals, the rate is just 39.66 percent without the top earner. Additionally, the month's average pledge per person drops from $46.57 to $31.70 without Warmachine. Warmachine: Tactics was the only strategy game that was successfully funded among the group in August. While July saw a boost in RPGs, with 11 games in the genre getting funded, August had 12 successful adventure game projects, the most of any genre. Adventure games earned a total of $286,098 thanks to 10,425 people. By comparison, the two shooters funded during the month earned $508,767 from 13,926 backers. While there's no way to discern whether the release of popular retail games like Saints Row 4 or funders' tendency to gravitate to a few extreme samples such as Warmachine had a bigger an impact on crowdfunding for the month, the latter seems pretty clear in August's data. You'll find the month's breakdown by genre after the break, as well as a list of August's top five projects.
TechShop to relocate its Menlo Park workspace, wants your help funding the move
Do you appreciate TechShop's community-driven hackerspaces? If so, the company would like your help in keeping one of those facilities alive. TechShop has to relocate its original Menlo Park workspace before October 31st, and it just launched a $250,000 crowdfunding campaign to help cover the moving costs. Should the fundraiser prove successful, TechShop will reward contributors with both prizes and passes to a Halloween benefit party; it will also hand out gift memberships to military veterans. Those who want to give the Menlo Park workshop a second chance can make a pledge at the source link.
Crowdfund Bookie, August 25 - 31: Fran Bow, Revolution 60
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. It was a quiet week in crowdfunding, as the Indiegogo project for Fran Bow and the Kickstarter projects for Revolution 60, SOS Saga and Shiden ended. Fran Bow earned the most money this week ($28,320), and also had the most backers of the projects, with 1,100 people funding the game. The highest average pledge per person went to Revolution 60 ($32.47), a narrative-focused game that is described as "Heavy Rain meets Mass Effect." Check out the results for the week and our fancy charts after the break.
Fran Bow finally has something to smile about: $20K on Indiegogo
Fran Bow is a psychological thriller and adorable adventure rolled into one point-and-click package, and it just passed its funding goal of $20,000 on Indiegogo with seven days remaining. Fran, the young girl in the game, witnesses the brutal murder of her parents and slips into insanity, ending up in a children's mental institution. She must work out how to escape and stay (mostly) sane by solving puzzles in the asylum. One game mechanic is the ability to pop pills to see another layer of the world that can potentially aid in the riddles, regardless of how horrifying those new visions may be. Fran Bow comes from Killmonday, a husband-and-wife development team (Isak and Natalia) based in Sweden. The story itself derives from Natalia's personal struggles as a child, as she explains in a blog post on the Killmonday site. Fran Bow is due out in July 2014 for PC, Mac, Linux, Windows 8, Android and iOS, and with the successful funding, it may come to more platforms (Wii U or Ouya) later on. Smile, Fran. Things are looking up.
Insert Coin: Piper melds home automation and security in a simple hub (hands-on)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Home automation and security cameras seldom combine elegantly, especially for apartment dwellers who can't rewire their living spaces. Blacksumac, however, believes it can seamlessly meld those technologies through its upcoming Piper hub. The device links both a fisheye camera and environmental sensors to a Z-Wave-based home automation system. Out of the box, it can watch for intruders, listen for (or produce) loud noises and monitor local conditions like temperature. Once Z-Wave peripherals are involved, you can program sophisticated triggers and responses: Piper can send a warning when a door opens, for example, or turn on air conditioning when it's hot. We've had a chance to see Piper in action, so read on for both our early impressions and details of what you'll get if you make a pledge.
Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo campaign ends with over $19 million outstanding
When Canonical took to Indiegogo to crowdfund its Ubuntu Edge smartphone, the $32 million it sought seemed like an incredibly lofty goal. And, one that's now proven unattainable. Despite quickly selling out of the lowest pledge tier that included a handset, reducing the price of more expensive tiers, then doing the same again as the deadline loomed, the campaign has closed over $19 million shy of its goal. Still, raising just over $12.8 million is a record of sorts, depending on whether you believe a failed effort qualifies. In total, a handful of high-cost bundles were pledged for, 5,674 backers coughed up enough for a lone Edge, and many more thousands offered small sums in support -- or, some just really wanted a T-shirt. We're not convinced the journey ends here, though. After all, there's clearly some desire for the Edge. Will we see investors step in to make it happen? Or, perhaps Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth will finally see fit to pump some of his own substantial reserves into the project. A project update from Shuttleworth can be found at the source link. In addition to thanking backers, he says that "the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers," adding: "Watch this space!"
FABtotum 3D prints and scans, mills, takes one step closer to self-replication
Granted, the name's a bit of a groaner (and we now have pictures of Bukowski sitting in front of a CAD program in our heads), but this box is capable of a pretty impressive array of maker activities. There's a 3D Printer, 3D scanner and CNC router on board. You can capture objects and print them out on the same device and do some subtractive manufacturing by way of a dual-head engraving / milling tool that can cut into wood and do PCB milling for circuit boards. FABtotum is currently up on Indiegogo, if you want to get in early. A final consumer version will run you a $1,099 pledge. Those units are expected to be delivered in May of next year.
New book highlighting Hurricane Sandy to feature only iPhone photos
Yes, the iPhone can take serious photographs. An upcoming book, #Sandy shows the destruction and hardship Hurricane Sandy brought to the East Coast of the US last year, and all the photos were taken by iPhones. The hardbound book has about 100 images by photographers Benjamin Lowy, Stephen Wilkes, Richard Renaldi, Hank Willis Thomas, Lyle Owerko, Wyatt Gallery, Ruddy Roye, Craig Wetherby and Michael Christopher Brown. I interviewed Lowy for TUAW last year about using the iPhone under extreme circumstances. The book is being published by Daylight Books for US$50.00 and is expected to be out this fall. All royalties will be donated to Occupy Sandy to support rebuilding efforts in the New York City area. The book is an Indiegogo project, and publication depends on meeting funding goals. Check the book website for some sample photos. Sandy was the most destructive hurricane of the 2012 season and the second costliest in US history. It affected 24 states, with most of the damage to New York when a storm surge hit on October 29. Total damage in the US is estimated at about $65 billion.
Crowdfund Bookie, August 11 - 17: 7 Days to Die, Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. It was an active week in crowdfunding, as the Kickstarter campaigns for 7 Days to Die, Legend of Iya, Tangiers, Balrum, Candle, Collateral, Codename Cygnus and Crypt Run as well as the Indiegogo campaigns for Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm and Gods Will Be Watching came to a close. Open-world survival horror game 7 Days to Die earned the most money this week ($507,612), and had the most backers of the group, with 13,876 people funding the project. Another open-world game, a vehicular combat game called Collateral, had the highest average pledge per person, with each backer averaging $53.52. Take a gander at the week's results and our fancy charts after the break.
Gods Will Be Watching you on PC and mobile in 2014
Gods Will Be Watching, the game jam darling-turned-full-fledged-game about survival and moral dilemmas from Deconstructeam, is coming to PC and mobile devices in 2014 thanks to a successful IndieGoGo campaign and partnership with Hotline Miami publisher Devolver Digital, who matched the crowdsourced funds. The full version of GWBW will take protagonist Captain Burden well beyond the game's original premise of surviving on an alien planet, but you can get a taste of what lies ahead by checking out the original version of the game here. Just remember: gods will be doing that thing they do.
No comment: 'Let's build a statue of Steve Jobs'
OK, so I lied. I am going to make a comment: this is one of the most inane crowdfunding projects ever. A group is seeking US$50,000 on Indiegogo to build a statue of Steve Jobs to be located "somewhere in the Bay Area." That $50K figure is based on a life-sized statue of El Jobso, but the people behind this project have big dreams and with tongues firmly implanted in cheek, say that if funding is beyond their wildest dreams they'll "aim for Statue of Liberty and Colossus of Rhodes proportions." So, what do you get as far as perks at various funding levels? Well, $100 will get you a copy of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, which you can buy in hardback for about $21 on Amazon. For $200, you get a black turtleneck shirt for "Jobs' signature look." Jobs actually wore black mock turtlenecks designed specifically for him by Japanese designer Issey Miyake. At the $25 level, your donation gets you an 8 x 10-inch glossy picture of Steve Jobs. C'mon, really? The list goes on, and it ain't pretty. Personally, I think the best monuments to Steve Jobs are the products that we carry with us all the time, or those that we spend our working and leisure hours with. The new "spaceship" headquarters building in Cupertino, one of the last projects that Jobs had a direct hand in, will truly be a lasting and impressive monument to the man. At publication time, the project had raised a whopping $108.
Ubuntu Edge raises record-breaking $10 million, enters Guinness Book of Almost
$10,311,220. It isn't sufficient to greenlight Canonical's innovative hybrid smartphone, but it is just enough to beat the sum raised by the Pebble smartwatch and thereby steal the crowdfunding record. Well, sort of, at least. It depends on whether the amount pledged is all that matters, regardless of whether the project actually comes to fruition -- as happened with both the Pebble on Kickstarter and Indiegogo's previous record holder, the Scanadu Scout. More importantly though, Ubuntu Edge may have reached the point where it'll have a second chance even if it doesn't achieve the required backing of $32 million: Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told the BBC that some manufacturers have noticed all the hubbub and have come "out of the woodwork" to discuss taking the Android / Ubuntu concept forward, such that August 21st may not prove to be a terminal deadline.
Honda intros Project Drive-In to save outdoor movies through digital projectors (video)
Drive-in theaters outlasted VHS tapes, but they may not survive the transition to digital-only movies -- many drive-ins can't afford the professional digital projectors they need to stay in business. Honda wants to give those outdoor venues a second chance through its new Project Drive-In rescue effort. At a minimum, the endeavor will donate digital projectors to five theaters based on web voting; further donations will depend on the results of an Indiegogo fundraising campaign. While there's no guarantee that Honda can save a drive-in near you, it may be worth chipping in to preserve some classic Americana through modern technology.
Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm surpasses Indiegogo fundraising goal
Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm, the enhanced version of indie PC fighter Yatagarasu, has bested its Indiegogo fundraising goal of $68,000 by almost an additional $30,000 as of press time. As a result, Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm will launch on PC "around February 2014" with GGPO netcode for online battles, a new song and new moves/voice acting for the game's eight returning characters. By having met its original goal of $68,000 in the first place, the game will also feature two new characters, an official English localization with "dynamic commentary" from well-known fighting game community personalities such as James Chen and UltraDavid, story rewrites and an arcade release for the Japanese version of the game, among other things. There's still about 30 hours left to contribute to the campaign and receive one of a multitude of reward tiers, otherwise prepare to deal a $15 combo to your wallet when the game is released next year.
Canonical drops Ubuntu Edge price to $695 for rest of crowdfunding campaign
Canonical's Indiegogo campaign for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone had an auspicious start, but it slowed down after the first few days. The Linux developer may have just rekindled interest, however, by dropping the regular price of the Edge from $775 to $695 for the last two weeks of the crowdfunding drive. Part supplier deals helped reduce the manufacturing costs, Canonical explains. While that's not the lowest price that we've seen during the campaign, there won't be another discount -- if you're at all interested in the unique Android and Ubuntu hybrid, you'll want to make a pledge today.
Crowdfund Bookie July 2013: Role-playing pays off
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. You could argue that July was a down month in terms of total money raised for video game projects through crowdfunding. While June saw $5,594,469 raised by 23 projects, July's 32 gaming projects earned $2,800,449. Of course, June also had two games in Hex and Massive Chalice that comprised over half of the month's earnings. Without those two games, June and July are much more comparable, as seen with some of the trends spotted in June that carried over to last month. Of the money raised by crowdfunders in July, 48.13 percent was over the combined goals for projects, a dip from June's 55.69 percent. This may be attributed to the extra crowdfunding week in the month of July (which included successfully funded projects tracked from June 30 through August 3). Without the final week, which accounted for a whopping 10 games, a four-week July would have seen an excess of 58.43 percent of its money raised. That fifth week of funding flattened the month out by ten percent. Whether the total amount raised would gradually decline to meet the combined goals of projects is unknown, but it's a trend we'll certainly keep an eye out for in August. Funders in July also averaged $44.52 per pledge, another significant dip from June's average of $57.11. With the drop-off in both money raised and mean average also came a decrease in the overall number of backers for July. Compared to June's 97,954 funders, July had 62,907. A large chunk were devoted to the 11 RPG projects that were funded last month, as 25,422 backers raised $1,056,158 for the genre. Lastly, the statistically-extreme group of players that backed three shooter games in June with an average of $94.72 per pledge returned in July to average $91.75 for the genre. It'll be interesting to see whether that trend holds up for August as well. You'll find the month's breakdown by genre after the break, as well as a list of July's top five projects.
