Calling all Kickstarter Projects

April 4, 2011 4:23 PM

Kickstarter recently started a "Curated Pages" feature where organizations and sites can show off member projects (here's the Creative Commons one for an example). They recently put me in charge of a "MetaFilter" curated projects page and I know I've seen dozens of mefites fund projects on Kickstarter in the past, but if anyone is currently running a project there, let me know and I'll add you to our page and share the URL when we have a few projects listed.

Also, I'm planning to add this to the New Post page at MeFi Projects, in order to help highlight member projects that aren't quite done yet (after which, they should go on Projects).

posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 4:23 PM (42 comments total)

Cool. I've been thinking of putting one up for some time. Maybe this will be my incentive to get it going.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:25 PM on April 4, 2011

Hey that's terrific, I always wished there was some way to have links to MeFi Projects-in-Process but ones that don't fit into the Projects framework. This is cool.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:30 PM on April 4, 2011

Definitely, I've been wanting to post about my project-in-progress, but couldn't because of the restrictions in Projects.
posted by babbageboole at 4:33 PM on April 4, 2011

refrigerator.metafilter.com? (a good idea)
posted by boo_radley at 4:35 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is great. I hope more MeFites get exposure and get funded because of this. Thanks for taking this on, mathowie.
posted by fake at 4:35 PM on April 4, 2011

I buy so much swag on Kickstarter it's ridiculous. I'm crossing my fingers there'll be a way to get notified via email when new MeFi stuff is listed, so's I can do like I do on the usual emails and buy cool stuff like improvised dance DVDs and monsters you build out of old vinyl records.
posted by carsonb at 4:40 PM on April 4, 2011

I am super excited about bitter-girl.com's project here! (Partly because I contributed to a couple of the books in question! But mostly because she's awesome and it's a great project.)
posted by bewilderbeast at 4:44 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

We could cut out the middleman. And the projects. Just send each other money.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:44 PM on April 4, 2011

Sweet, I added bitter-girl.com's project. We need just two more to get a live site for this.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:49 PM on April 4, 2011

I tossed it on the sidebar, hopefully people will start zipping over here. Maybe check through old submitted Kickstarter projects sent to Projects?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:51 PM on April 4, 2011

Yeah, I looked at some old ones and I can only list two old ones and I need two in progress to launch. Ultimately, it will be almost all new in-progress projects.

We should probably make a FAQ entry about it ("What can I do if my project isn't quite ready for MeFi Projects?) that includes a link to the curation page and reminds users to email me to be added.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:53 PM on April 4, 2011

I have a feeling this small move now will have a major impact sitewide a few years down the road.
posted by Ardiril at 5:04 PM on April 4, 2011

Good or bad Ardirl?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:19 PM on April 4, 2011

I was working on a game thingy that I was thinking about putting on Kickstarter. This could be very nice.
posted by JHarris at 5:36 PM on April 4, 2011

Awesome.
posted by rtha at 6:10 PM on April 4, 2011

Neeeeaaaat.
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:12 PM on April 4, 2011

Good or bad Ardiril? - Good never comes without a little bad. Overall though, quite good, and most likely in terms of both growth and greater interconnection potential with the other subsites, especially Jobs. You already have most of the infrastructure for a virtual incubator. Some tweaking toward that end coupled with this tie to Kickstarter, and the whole thing could damn near drive itself.

Expanding Music to include other arts and crafts in some way could feed into the incubator model as well. Also, perhaps a section in Users Profiles called Portfolio? Moderating may pick up a few new flaws and facets. Just brainstorming now...
posted by Ardiril at 6:30 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have a thing I call "The Human Fund"....
posted by orthogonality at 6:42 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd like some money to work on developing.....taters.
posted by schmod at 6:53 PM on April 4, 2011

Well.. hardcore or softcore taters? Or both‽​
posted by carsonb at 7:00 PM on April 4, 2011

mathowie: "Good or bad Ardirl"

Good. Bad. He's the Ardirl with the gun.
posted by boo_radley at 7:02 PM on April 4, 2011

God I fund so many kickstarters that I set aside a separate account just for them so I don't accidentally drain my housing budget.

What I'm saying is that you're kicking me in the financial kneecaps here Matt.

and I love it
posted by The Whelk at 7:05 PM on April 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

MeFi films. Go.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:17 PM on April 4, 2011

Pitch: An erotic journey into the heart of the internet....
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 PM on April 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Myself and a few friends (at least a couple of whom are on Mefi) will be launching a story-based project on Kickstarter in the next 2-3 months, fingers crossed, so we'd definitely be up for being on a Mefi page!
posted by adrianhon at 1:45 AM on April 5, 2011

Hmmmm this looks pretty good, but isn't kickstarter for US projects only ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:31 AM on April 5, 2011

It's finally beginning to dawn on my slow brain that this kickstarter thing my actually be a useful way to get my new limited ed. photography/screenprinted shirt project off the ground. I've stalled out due to the cost of blanks. Gotta get that artitst's statement out of my brain and onto the page. Thanks for floating this up into my field of view - the Old Economy isn't working out too well for this. Time for to try teh new.
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:50 AM on April 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

sgt.serenity: In practice, no. There are plenty of international projects on Kickstarter, but you do need someone in the US to set up an Amazon Payments Account (which requires a US citizen, bank account, etc.) for you. For my UK-based project, I got a friend to help me out with that, and I know a number of other people in the UK who've done it with relatives, friends, etc.
posted by adrianhon at 3:59 AM on April 5, 2011

Good to see a projects incubator section being thought about.
posted by inturnaround at 5:32 AM on April 5, 2011

but you do need someone in the US to set up an Amazon Payments Account (which requires a US citizen, bank account, etc.) for you

It would be wonderful to get funding for a project for myself, there's lots of things that I would be able to do that I think might be of interest for some people.
However, at the risk of killing it stone dead with the usual intemperate snarky comment - i'm trying my best to wonder how everybody else from mefi that isn't in the us could do this.
Is there perhaps a chance of someone from the us end of mefi making an account available for people ?

(BTW You're looking a lot younger these days Matt, have you done something with your hair ?)
posted by sgt.serenity at 10:41 AM on April 5, 2011

This is awesome. I love Kickstarter and buy way too much stuff there, or so my girlfriend tells me.
posted by sveskemus at 12:34 PM on April 5, 2011

What qualifies as a project? I'm currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund finishing my band's album - is that something we would post?
posted by platinum at 1:26 PM on April 5, 2011

Woot! Here it is: http://www.kickstarter.com/metafilter
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:00 PM on April 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

What qualifies as a project?

Anything on Kickstarter done involving someone that is a MeFi member, that's all I ask. If someday we have too many, than yeah, maybe I would filter it for only the cool sounding projects, but for now anything involving a mefi member can get listed.

Oh, and I added your band's next CD to the MeFi page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:04 PM on April 5, 2011

Cool! Thanks mathowie! :)
posted by platinum at 2:30 PM on April 5, 2011

Thanks! And hey -- I didn't realize bewilderbeast was one of "ours" on the Kickstarter til this! Hi bewilderbeast!

(Though I suppose with 70+ designers involved, it's hardly surprising).

This book series has been going on for nearly a year now, and I've been up to my eyeballs in it lately as we come to the final stages. You can see more preview photos from it here. We'd definitely appreciate help in spreading the word, so thanks again, Matt, for putting it on there and bewilderbeast for recommending it!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:38 PM on April 5, 2011

minor deal, typo in the description: "all featuring someone that is also a member" should be "all featuring someone who is also a member"
posted by mattbucher at 11:21 AM on April 7, 2011

thanks mattbucher, I fixed that.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:21 PM on April 7, 2011

Interesting. Who moderates kickstarter anyway? I would have expected a bunch of diaspora cones posted on there after they made like $100k or whatever. But they never materialized, and it isn't like the people who posted the project were all that competent.

Their FAQ doesn't seem to say what criteria they use to decide, nor what the rejection rate is. According to this article they are pretty hands on in terms of the proposal moderation.
posted by delmoi at 7:08 PM on April 8, 2011

That's a fantastic idea!
posted by worldli at 4:42 PM on April 13, 2011

delmoi, they are definitely very hands on and approve every project on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason - I have seen similar projects from friends where one is rejected and another approved!
posted by worldli at 4:44 PM on April 13, 2011

This is one of my favorites on the site right now, chronicling the history of the environmental movement:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fiercegreenfilm/a-fierce-green-fire-a-history-of-the-environmental?ref=live
posted by worldli at 9:52 PM on April 16, 2011