I'm convinced that this is the future of music production. My favorite band, just came back after 8 years. Their goal was to raise $30,000 on Kickstarter to produce a new album on their own. They still have 11 days left, but they have raised $182,759 from just 3,090 backers.

You can't pirate CDs that don't exist yet. You are commissioning a band to make new music. Kickstarter does take a decent cut, but not anything like the labels, and the band has full creative control.

Wondering what band? Five Iron Frenzy. You probably haven't heard of them, but that's the great part. You don't have to be a band like Coldplay to make an album like this. I've also backed small, local bands making their first album.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fiveironfrenzy/new-five-...

The downside to Kickstarter is there is no checking if the project operator ever actually delivers. I've backed multiple projects that have succeeded to have nothing ever happen, no product delivered and no updates, same has happened to a friend, all on different projects, mainly creative ones. It sucks and it really puts me off using the service. A project I backed a few months ago delivered to me last month (Romo) and it was the first to ever deliver, after backing 9 in total since 2010... creative people are unreliable it seems, really put me off ever backing projects that aren't guaranteed in some way.

Yeah I know what you mean. Where the hell is Robocop!? http://detroitneedsrobocop.com/

I usually only contribute 1-5 dollars so I don't think I've ever even noticed if they're follow up since I'm not going to get anything anyway.

Caveat emptor?

They have a pie chart, but the elements of chart are all the same size. A sorted list or table view would be more informative.

  Dance 1,054,763.95  
  Fashion 1,351,659.85
  Comics 1,763,628.48
  Music 19,801,685.21
  Photography 2,116,261.93
  Food 2,809,503.31
  Games 3,616,530.88
  Film & Video 32,473,790.40
  Theater 4,051,962.62
  Technology 4,673,470.41
  Publishing 5,134,388.55
  Art 5,900,166.14
  Design 9,180,637.55

Load: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog_assets/2011_stats/category_w...

Run: https://gist.github.com/40146d0a7afed6628f45

I find it incredible that 46% of projects were successfully launched through Kickstarter. Kickstarter is one of those fantastic services that enable people to do cool things that normally wouldn't have been able to be done, and I love that they are so successful at helping people follow their dreams.

Some people have been saying that they haven't received their rewards, I've backed 9 projects, (one still in progress, but the elevation dock is going to get funded), so far I have received 2 of the 9 rewards I had selected. 5 of the projects have posted updates regarding manufacturing and that they are still on track regarding getting me the reward as promised.

Only 1 project so far has me worried that I won't see my money back. Either way, to me it is a gamble. Either I just gambled my money away and get nothing in return or I get something before anyone else in the world is able to purchase it.

Thanks for backing. Working 24/7 now to get you your Elevation Dock ahead of our planned ship date.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hop/elevation-dock-the-b...

I absolutely love the design of it, and that it fixes the issues I've had with my Apple iPhone dock. My only wish was that I could buy more of them to give to my dad, and my siblings, unfortunately I just don't have the money at the moment.

I saw your post regarding the sped up manufacturing. Looking forward to having it in my hands faster :-).

Quite confusing page, that one. First, before the list of stats:

And in October we reached $100 million in pledges and had our one millionth backer.

Then, in the list of statistics:

Dollars Pledged: $99,344,382

Which seems to contradict the statement before the stats-listing. Then in the "analysis" section after the stats listing for 2010:

Total pledges were just shy of $100 million in 2011.

Confusing.

> And in October we reached $100 million in pledges and had our one millionth backer.

probably includes 2010

> Dollars Pledged: $99,344,382

only 2011

Does anybody know the reason Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments which prevents anyone outside the US using the site?

It's likely because of the way the Amazon FPS API works. You can set it up to pay directly to a third party while keeping a cut for yourself. That way Kickstarter doesn't have to act as an intermediary that collects the money and pays the project starter.

Actually they do have a blog entry on it: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/amazon-payments-and-us-only

When Kickstarter started, the types of payment logic they needed (user approves payment now but don't execute it until later; user feels like they're approving one payment, but it is split between multiple recipients (Kickstarter and the project owner)) weren't supported by PayPal, but were supported by Amazon Flexible Payments Service

In 2009, PayPal rolled out a set of very similar API's that would allow them to do these things (see http://x.com). I would guess that the fact that they haven't made the switch is just a matter of inertia, the difficulty the transition might present, and having more important things to work on, but I'm not intimately familiar enough to know if there are other reasons they might be staying.

I do know that a friend of mine had a startup that started on FPS but was very, very eager to switch to PayPal when X came along because FPS presented so many problems. They were a lot smaller and less wedded to the platform, though.

It's reportedly due to the nature of how Kickstarter handles transactions: they don't process payment until after the funding period closes (and only if the project meets or exceeds its goal). Amazon Payments is basically the only payment processor that allows this sort of "delayed" charging from what I understand.

Thanks for explaining, I really wish they would roll out worldwide. There are some great things on it I would love to give money to and some projects of my own I'd like to try.

Just to clarify, you can back projects from anywhere in the world. I am in England and I can successfully back projects, the only thing you need to be in the US to do is creating projects.

When I realised I couldn't start projects I thought that also meant I couldn't back them. Thanks for clarifying.

because Amazon payments allows you to agree to pay at a later date and cancel that for whatever reason, Paypal etc. do not support this (as far as I know). I also assume the reason you can't use the site (as a project creator, anyone can use Kickstarter as a backer) is because of tax issues.

FYI invested.in can be used by anyone, worldwide.

Disclaimer: it's my brother's company

One of the things I'd really like to see out of Kickstarter is some solid information (ie more than a couple of blog posts) on failed projects, to make room for some good analysis of why projects fail to gain funding.

I wonder what other areas the all or nothing funding model could be applied to? I've been kicking around the idea of trying to use this model for NPOs with the goal of encouraging innovation.

The only project I backed "The startup Kids" http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestartupkids/the-start... has had no update since July last year.

If these uncompleted 'successful' projects continue, it will be a problem for kickstarter. my last experience has definitely prevented me from funding another project.

According to the last comment on http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestartupkids/the-start...

Dec 1: We have already submitted it to some film festivals so now we are crossing our fingers and hoping it will be accepted!

Glad to hear this just before I launch my campaign!