Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Purrchance to Dream

It's not everybody's cup of tea, I'm sure, but that's not stopping these folks from trying to produce a legit, bound, complete set of Shakespeare's works, in LOLspeak.

I don't know if it'll succeed, and it seems to really push the boundaries of what Kickstarter is for.  More than half the budget is for editing ($100 each for 38 works) and the rest is admittedly for "Kickstarter's percentage, as well as the rewards."  So if you contribute, a significant portion of the proceeds will go to nothing more than supporting the project being on KS in the first place.  I don't think that's really what it's meant for.

3 comments:

JM said...

What IS it really meant for? More basically, what's the point? It seems like an incredibly involved exercise and a huge, expensive undertaking for novelty's sake.

Duane Morin said...

You mean the lol thing in general, or Kickstarter? I quite like the theory behind Kickstarter. It takes money to turn ideas into reality. Where do you get money? Traditionally you either spent your own, or you asked family or friends, or you went out and pitched VC and angle investors. Kickstarter turns the entire web into micro investors - instead of getting 1 person to contribute $50k, maybe your goal is to get 5000 people to contribute $50. You make your pitch, you tell investors what they get for their money, and if everything works out, the project gets made.

What I've wondered is what prevents somebody from making a pitch, collecting the money, and then just taking the money and running.

JM said...

You're right. Kickstarter seems like a good idea in theory. I meant the lol project.
Is there really a demand for this kind of thing? Or is this just a far-flung attempt to create one?

As far as security, I clicked as many buttons as I could without actually pledging. I'd feel apprehensive about registering a card # in this case, although it is done through Amazon. According to the instructions, the card isn't charged until--and if--the successful amount of funding is received. I don't know either how one might be protected against fraud with something like this.