Kickstarter: Games, Clocks, and Bottles

Kickstarter. Crowdsourcing. Another way that people have found out to get out of anonymity online. This phenomenon is explained in the dictionary as being popular thanks to the internet: “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers” (Merriam-webster.com, 2015).

So, Kickstarter, as a crowdsource, is “a new way to fund creative projects” (Kickstarter.com, 2015) because on the internet, people “have complete control over and responsibility for their projects” (Kickstarter.com, 2015). In a blog article Yannig Roth’s (2012) suggests that crowdsourcing works because it complements the traditional co-creation -- “[the]creative and social collaboration process between producers and consumers, facilitated by the company (Piller et al., as cited in Roth, 2014). This might be true as many unsuccessful kickstarter projects seem to lack the “organisational knowledge” (Roth, 2014) that the traditional co-creation usually involves. When co-creation and crowdsourcing are blended together, they bring up to the surface nice and successful new media stories.

This idea is valid if we look at  the story of  Jaded Gamercast: Adepticon Double Date, a Kickstarter project created by Lange Grinevitch from Edmonton, AB, who succeeded to go way over his goal (159% funded). No doubt, this story succeeded on Kickstarter, mostly because his creator nicely blended the traditional co-creation with crowdsourcing: first, there is a clarity about what is being kickstarted: miniature gaming podcasts, called  Jaded Gamer Cast (offered for free 200+ episodes if the project reaches it’s goal); second, the creator calls backers to action through a simple story, using the internet crowdsourcing multimodality (videos and pictures).  

Another successful story is  'Time as Moments' Designer Clock created by Donald Papp from Edmonton, AB. The Kickstarter project was successfully funded (164%) as it promotes an ingenious and unique work of art, something practical and relatively cheap: “Each number becomes clearly defined only once each hour before becoming once again unclear. The design reflects time as moments.” The project is successful, although it is presented in an incredible simple way: there is only a picture of the clock and only a few words used for description. It is astonishing how the image speaks for itself and so, it gathers so many backers. Perhaps, if other forms of crowdsourcing have been used, such as videos, this project might have had gathered even more supporters. Again, like the previous project, this  stands out due to its clarity and simplicity. However, the elements of traditional co-creation (“social collaboration process …facilitated by a company”) are not present. The project succeeds only because the product is unique.

An example of unsuccessful project is  Living Necklaces! Beauty and Nature to Wear by Your Heart! created by Tara from Edmonton, AB. Although this project looks like one of a kind -- “[t]his empty necklace will contain a thriving, healthy moss or fern, keeping nature right over your heart!” -- the number of backers is 0. Why this is unsuccessful? Perhaps due to its’ lack of practicality– who would wear around his neck a bottle with a fern inside? Plus, the jewellery-plant will definitely die outside during the Edmonton’s winter months. Besides, there are no elements of “organizational knowledge” of a co-creation, and the multimodality (i.e. video) is also missing.  Perhaps,Tara’s project might have had chances of success among flower-lovers if the piece would have been designed for indoors, as an ornamental plant.

These three kickstarter projects, make me believe that crowdsourcing nicely complements the traditional co-creation. However, crowdsourcing projects can stand by themselves without traditional co-creation as long as the projects are unique and presented with clarity, simplicity through new media multimodality.

References

Kickstarter.com,. (2015). What is Kickstarter — Kickstarter. Retrieved 27 March 2015, from https://www.kickstarter.com/hello?ref=footer

Merriam-webster.com,. (2015). crowdsourcing | the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Retrieved 27 March 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crowdsourcing

Roth, Y. (May 2012). “Crowdsourcing and CoCreation are Complementary”. Innovation Excellence.

http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2012/05/31/crowdsourcingandcocreationar

ecomplementary/