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Hip New Funding Site: Kickstarter.com

by Smithee on September 8, 2009

in Career and Work

This certainly isn’t the first or only Web site where one can describe a project and ask for donations, but if word of mouth is anything to go by, the new Kickstarter.com is the hip place to get funding these days.

I first heard about it on Twitter when one of my heroes Jesse Thorn linked to his project for people who want to learn to dress better, one might say “more sartorially”, if one were in the habit of speaking like a character in a PBS murder mystery series. Jesse described his project, tweeted about it once or twice, and the project is now over-funded and, one assumes, in production.

About 60% of the projects have been successfully funded, and they range from “help me produce my next album” to “experimental three-wheeled human-powered vehicle”. The trend seems to be that donors get a little something back for their effort, whether it be an autographed CD or credit in a Web series, etc.

I think I’m personally a little too old-fashioned and/or proud to ask for free money from strangers. If I have an idea for a new project (and I have them about once a month, most of them never launch), and I think it’s worth pursuing, and all I’m missing is the financing… isn’t that why people get things like loans and business partners?

Anyway, if you’ve used a service like this successfully, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Got a dream but no cash? The Internet can help, Matthew Goldstein, Reuters, Sep 4, 2009

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Do You Get Satisfaction?

by Smithee on June 9, 2009

in Consumer

It seems like as long as we’ve had the Web, we’ve had support forums, usually for software, probably because you can’t depend on software to work the same way twice in a row.

Sometimes the support forum is managed and moderated by the company that makes the product, and more often you can find one populated by people who just want to help (and/or call you a l0s3r). While there’s been no dearth of places to look, for the most part they seemed to me not very helpful.

I’ve been keeping my eye on GetSatisfaction.com for a few months now, and am very happy with the way it’s set up. So I’m recommending it to all of you.

Basically, GetSatisfaction is a third-party warehouse for consumer problems (of all sorts, not just software, not just computers. There’s an area for Whole Foods Market, for example). In addition to getting help from consumers with the same problem you have, you can get help from the company that caused (however inadvertently) the problem.

This way, you have the best chance of getting your question answered, and the company in question doesn’t need to spend the time and money building a support infrastructure. They just need to spend the time answering the calls for help. GetSatisfaction accounts aren’t free for companies, but trust me, it costs a lot less than building custom software.

There are also areas for asking questions about companies who haven’t signed up for official representative accounts. For example: the unofficial customer support forum for Netflix.

In my experience, it’s not the place to go if your hard drive crashes, and you need to recover files for the presentation in an hour. But if it’s not an emergency, it’s been just about perfect so far. See you there.

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Learn How to Handle Your Mortgage… In Church

by Flexo on February 26, 2008

in Education

The Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn is concerned that the recent rash of foreclosures, if it continues, will degenerate the neighborhood into its recent crime-ridden past. To combat this possible future, the church has now begun offering “Housing Crisis” workshops alongside its Sunday school religious lessons.

Are pastors and Sunday school teachers extolling the values of living within your means, buying only what you can afford, and negotiating with creditors to manage your mortgage payments? No, the church is bringing in housing experts, unaffiliated I would assume, to speak to the congregation.

This program seems to be a good idea on the surface. I don’t think the religious setting would cause too much conflict. I think secular schools and other community institutions would benefit — and it would benefit their communities as well — by offering adult education courses following this example.

A Sunday school lesson in mortgages [Marketplace]

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