Kickstarter Failures: Infographic Options

[Cybes]

http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/11/kickstar...em-infographic/

I recently came across Dan Misener’s article ”Kickstarter hides failure,” where he talked about how crowdfunding site Kickstarter makes it difficult for you to see/find failed projects. They intentionally prevent failed campaigns from being indexed by the search engines (through “noindex” robot meta tags).

Dan’s article got quite a bit of attention. And in his follow-up post, he posed some interesting questions that led me to do some investigations of my own.

Some interesting figures there. For instance: Did you know their biggest hits were nothing to do with computing? I didn't.

A few of the 'revelations' aren't exactly news, though. It's only common sense that project with lower goals will be successful more often, for example.

[AccessDenied]

Interesting...

But by contrast, are they hiding it if noone knows about it? Can it be assumed that if a kickstart fails because only 1 or 2 people found it, and you assume that 1% of traffic donates.. Well. That's 100 - 200 people found it /know about it.

That's not a lot of people. That's not hiding it. That's just people not knowing.

All the successful kickstarts I've heard about are either:
a) Viral
b) Something which is close to mine, and a lot of other hearts (eg. Wasteland2)

When you have a kickstart to "Do kwizzly t stuff and sell it" Well.. You better have a good viral campaign to go with it, because people won't normally search for kwizzly t and will never find it otherwise.

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[Cybes]

But by contrast, are they hiding it if noone knows about it? Can it be assumed that if a kickstart fails because only 1 or 2 people found it, and you assume that 1% of traffic donates.. Well. That's 100 - 200 people found it /know about it.

That's not a lot of people. That's not hiding it. That's just people not knowing.

I understand your point, but I'd reckon that specifically sticking a 'noindex' on failed projects is hiding. Or at least obfuscating.

Unless, of course, they 'noindex' ALL expired projects to prevent them clogging up searches for current stuff.

[AccessDenied]

Umm. That makes no sense.

In the event of a failed project I was under the understanding the money does NOT got collected, and thus no reward schemes or whatever must be followed through.

A successful campaign WILL have the payments go through and the 'kickstarter' must have a valid method of getting contact with those who donated.

Sorry, I don't think it's conspiracy. I think it's a "There is no follow up so there is no point in hosting this anymore". Sound logic. Probably economical in the world where we have to pay for service space (And how much server space would have to be paid for with no 'payment in return' if ALL failures were up?)

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[Cybes]

Umm. That makes no sense.

In the event of a failed project I was under the understanding the money does NOT got collected, and thus no reward schemes or whatever must be followed through.

A successful campaign WILL have the payments go through and the 'kickstarter' must have a valid method of getting contact with those who donated.

Sorry, I don't think it's conspiracy. I think it's a "There is no follow up so there is no point in hosting this anymore". Sound logic. Probably economical in the world where we have to pay for service space (And how much server space would have to be paid for with no 'payment in return' if ALL failures were up?)

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I don't know where the issue of payments came from: I never mentioned it, and I don't recall seeing it anywhere in the article. I was just talking about finding past projects. (Btw, by an 'expired' project, as in my previous post, I include those that met their targets as well as those that did not.)

If it is the case that all projects are removed from their servers after the donation period is passed, then that's simple management. As you said, "simple logic": it saves storage space, and prevents defunct projects from spamming up search results. (Not sure how much credence I give to the storage angle: I have 10GB of mail space for 'free' with my gmail account, and I'm hardly one of Google's most valued customers. A single page of HTML is a few hundred KB at most.)

I don't think there's a conspiracy - at least not one that matters. At worst, I'd put it down to somewhat underhanded spin: "Nope, those unsuccessful projects never happened. Do a search. See?"

n/m. I just thought was interesting - and not just for this narrow issue. Seeing what sort of projects were most proposed and most supported was a bigger PoI to me.

[AccessDenied]

I appreciate where you're coming from, but I don't see why it's a problem personally.

The issue of payment came up because that is what the website is all about. If a payment isn't going ahead, because of an insufficient funds thing then fair enough.

Further, I still receive updates from a kickstarter I took part in. It is going ahead.

I'd prefer it if the kickstarter completely got dismantled if it failed so I don't get spammed from the guy/gal that failed. It's not going ahead. Too bad. So sad. You had a good shot. Please don't harass me further.

I think it's creating a story where none truly exists. Everyone knows that not everyone gets their target.

And as for storage. Only a few hundred k? Depends. Many host pictures and videos and the like. So more likely MEG.. And it's all well and good to say Gmail gives me 10gig.. How much are you earning them in advertising with your hosted email?

A website has to pay for hosting. More storage (Every meg) is counted. Bit simplistic, but if you can save 10 meg here, and 20 meg there then it adds up.

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