Courtesy: WobbleWorks LLC

Most of us are familiar with the mega-funded campaigns that have taken Kickstarter by storm over the past year, most notably Pebble.

Last week, another mega-funded project has quickly risen to join the ranks of these iconic campaigns. That project is 3Doodler. 

3Doodler is described as a pen that allows you to “draw in the air.” It sounds crazy, but the project video (shown below) gives a glimpse into how it works. To explain it simply, it’s a pen that uses a variation of standard 3D printing technology.

The project was launched on February 18 with an initial humble goal of $30K and is already at about $1.9M. Kicktraq shows a projected final funding amount of ~$8M, though the project creators have begun to limit the availability of each reward tier, so it’s likely that, in a similar fashion to what was seen with the Pebble campaign, funding will hit a ceiling.

So if you’re interested in getting your hands on 3Doodler before that happens, go ahead and check out their project now. Otherwise, you’ll be able to find it on TinyLightbulbs later this year.

Courtesy: Mirza Minds

This week we’re focusing on a project that has a mission to share its success: 1:Face Watches on Indiegogo.

These watches, in addition to being beautifully designed and presented, also serve to allow the individuals wearing them to participate in one of six different charities.

The way this works is fairly straightforward. The guys over at Mirza Minds have chosen six charities: One Day’s Wages, Charity:Water, The National Breast Cancer Foundation, The Adventure Project, Keep a Child Alive, and the American Cancer Society, each represented by a different color of watch.

Each watch that’s sold translates into a certain amount of money that is donated to the corresponding charity. The breakdown can be seen below:

Courtesy: Mirza Minds

We think this is a pretty awesome idea, and have backed the project ourselves. Why not head on over to their project page and do the same?

Yesterday evening, Kickstarter announced a set of new project guidelines: 

1) Project creators are required to outline potential risks and challenges they may face throughout their project, and how they are able to overcome them. 

(The following guidelines affect Hardware and Product Design projects)

2) Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future, and can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development.

3) Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists.

4) Multiple quantities of a product as a reward are prohibited. Only one unit of any product can be offered to a backer.

These guidelines have not arrived without significant resistance from the site’s users (we've shown just a few comments in the image above).

Not much criticism has come up regarding the first guideline, as it seems to be a sensible request to ask of creators. But the next three guidelines are sparking controversy.

One of the biggest criticisms being voiced is that these new guidelines are, in a word, ironic. They were announced under the general statement of “Kickstarter is Not a Store”, though, as many individuals have commented on the blog post where they were posted, they will inevitably increase the amount of projects showcasing finished products and decrease the amount of projects showcasing a blossoming idea.

In other words, individuals with great ideas who are lacking the funds to bring them to life will likely struggle even more, as backers will be less likely to invest money in a project consisting of a makeshift prototype that doesn’t give justice to the final design of the product (through the use of images such as renderings). So how can project creators combat this problem? By gathering enough funds to produce a polished product able convey the final concept.

But isn’t that what Kickstarter is for? If a project creator has enough money to bring his product to a near-final/final stage, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of Kickstarter (and this recent announcement), as the creator would essentially be selling a product that already exists?

Finally, the guideline prohibiting the offering of multiple quantities of a product is leading many project creators to question whether or not they will be able to easily reach their campaign goals. By offering multiple quantities, a project can very quickly accrue a large amount of money, due to the presence of higher priced reward levels. Restricting rewards to only one product, however, will lead to higher priced reward levels (with fewer rewards coming from the level), an overall decrease in the amount of pledges to Hardware and Product Design projects, and therefore lower campaign totals.

It will be interesting to see how Kickstarter responds, if at all, to the community’s backlash. What’s clear at this point is that the general response from Kickstarter users, both creators and backers, is that these new guidelines are unwelcome.

And, while Kickstarter has made it clear that they are not a store for crowdfunded products, you can rest assured that TinyLightbulbs certainly is.

What are your thoughts on this announcement? Do you think that these guidelines will benefit or hurt the Kickstarter community? Let us know in the comments below.

Courtesy: Gawker

We occasionally like to take a look at crowdfunding projects that don’t involve a product as the end result. While gadgets and accessories are a large portion of what’s coming from crowdfunding today, there are many other projects that are just as newsworthy.

Earlier this year, a video was uploaded to YouTube by several middle schoolers, showing them harassing Karen Klein, a 68-year-old bus monitor. The video is, to say the least, pretty hard to watch. Once the video had been uploaded, it began to garner a significant amount of attention.

After watching the video, one individual decided to take action. Max Sidorov immediately set up a campaign on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $5,000 to pay for Karen to take a short vacation from her $15K/year job.

What resulted far exceeded Max’s initial expectations.

Individuals from over 80 countries banded together through this crowdfunding campaign and donated a total of over $700,000.

Karen will obviously be taking a little more than just a vacation. And with this newly acquired wealth, Karen has decided to use $100,000 to begin her own anti-bullying foundation. Additionally, she is already planning on a series of speaking dates.

Courtesy: Clip Tree

This week’s project spotlight is showcasing an inventive product that was launched just a few days ago.

The project is Clip Tree. 

The concept behind Clip Tree is very simple, and combined with a great minimalist design and presentation, it quickly caught our attention.

Clip Tree is a sleek valet featuring a variety of different clips that can be attached in order to provide different functions. Some examples of the clips that are available are: hook, bowl, tray, peg, mirror, and more.

As you can see above, the possible uses for Clip Tree are seemingly limitless. It can be used as a coat rack, a key/smartphone tray, or whatever else your imagination can come up with.

If you’d like to take a closer look at Clip Tree and support the project, you can do that here.

It seems that artists have been working overtime with putting together awesome infographics related to crowdfunding. You won’t hear any complaining from us. As you all have probably noticed, we love visual representations of data. It makes things much more memorable and interesting.

The most recent one we found gives some great insight into several aspects of Kickstarter, such as the factors that increase a project’s chance at success, which categories see the highest percentage of successful projects, and more.

Another reason we love this infographic? It referenced a project we were previously unaware of: Motivational Tapes for Cats. Stumbling across that little gem alone makes us happy we found this. 

Courtesy: OnlineBusinessDegree

It’s no secret that there have been several very successful video game projects that have shown up this year on the crowdfunding scene.

If you’ve even remotely been paying attention over the last several months, it’s likely that you’ve come across projects such as Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Ouya, and most recently, Homestuck (which raised an impressive $500,000 in its first day).

But did you know that the game category on Kickstarter has already brought in a whopping $50 million this year? That’s just this year so far. There’s still 4 months left.

It’s true - gamers of all types have spoken loud and clear and shown the online community that they’re really into independently funded games. While the game category does include products such as board games, it is usually the video games that rake in the ultra funding, as well as much of the attention. 

To give you an idea of just how quickly this category is expanding: In 2009 the game category didn’t even bring in a total of $50,000 on Kickstarter. In 2010, that figure jumped to just over $500,000. In 2011, the total was $3.6 million. 

And now, just 2/3 of the way through 2012, it’s already at $50 million.

If that doesn’t make the established players in the gaming industry just a little nervous, I don’t know what would.

Have you ever participated in or created a crowdfunded game project? Let us know in the comments below.

Courtesy: ThingsWeStart

There’s a new site that launched today with the mission of providing an easy to use interface that will allow users to view current Kickstarter projects based on location.

The site is ThingsWeStart. It’s a very interesting idea, and we have yet to see anything like this until now.

Anyone who’s tried to search for crowdfunding projects knows that it can sometimes be a tedious task if you want to add any sort of filter to the search. Things We Start makes this process a breeze by displaying a realtime map that pinpoints the locations of any projects within your search parameters.

Looking for all design projects in Seattle? No problem. Just select the category of project and zoom into the map to see what projects are getting funded right now in that area.

In addition to searching by location and category, users can also view projects based on funding amount. If you want to see projects that are close to being fully funded, simply select the “Almost There” option, and you’ll be given a list of projects that just need a final push to become successful.

ThingsWeStart is a fun, interactive alternative to the search function on Kickstarter, and we definitely recommend giving it a try.