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App.net funded with $500,000.

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Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#11

Post by sdqali »

jtokoph wrote: post #8

Not that I'm accusing Dalton of doing this, but when croudfunding without using a platform like kickstarter, it might be too easy to fake backer numbers in order to meet the goal or inflate popularity. What this means for the future: Companies will announce croudfunding and then fake amazing numbers in order to appear popular and gain lots of press. I can see the headline now: "ACME Software raises $3 million in firs…

A number of people have raised this point to Dalton and he has promised that he will do a third party verification of all funding promises.

For example, see this: https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234698066245074945 and https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234399350275571714

EDIT: Added a link to Twitter conversation showing more context.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#13

Post by unimpressive »

jtokoph wrote: post #8

Not that I'm accusing Dalton of doing this, but when croudfunding without using a platform like kickstarter, it might be too easy to fake backer numbers in order to meet the goal or inflate popularity. What this means for the future: Companies will announce croudfunding and then fake amazing numbers in order to appear popular and gain lots of press. I can see the headline now: "ACME Software raises $3 million in firs…

https://alpha.app.net/dalton/post/32618

"We are using Stripe, so it's easy to audit." - Dalton Caldwell

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#14

Post by citricsquid »

jtokoph wrote: post #8

Not that I'm accusing Dalton of doing this, but when croudfunding without using a platform like kickstarter, it might be too easy to fake backer numbers in order to meet the goal or inflate popularity. What this means for the future: Companies will announce croudfunding and then fake amazing numbers in order to appear popular and gain lots of press. I can see the headline now: "ACME Software raises $3 million in firs…

It's an interesting point, if you look at the video statistics it has only had 31,000 plays which means for every 4 people that watch the video at least 1 spends $50. However, Stripe has access to their payment info so it's possible to prove whether or not this is faked.

Actually, that's an interesting question: would it be fraud to fake the last $xxx,xxx of a crowd sourcing drive?

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#15

Post by J-H »

sdqali wrote: post #11
jtokoph wrote: post #8

Not that I'm accusing Dalton of doing this, but when croudfunding without using a platform like kickstarter, it might be too easy to fake backer numbers in order to meet the goal or inflate popularity. What this means for the future: Companies will announce croudfunding and then fake amazing numbers in order to appear popular and gain lots of press. I can see the headline now: "ACME Software raises $3 million in firs…

A number of people have raised this point to Dalton and he has promised that he will do a third party verification of all funding promises. For example, see this: https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234698066245074945 and https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234399350275571714 EDIT: Added a link to Twitter conversation showing more context.

Dalton also says this on app.net: https://alpha.app.net/dalton/post/32618

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#18

Post by J-H »

arunoda wrote: post #16

This is awesome. But the real question is how they got funded more than 50% in just 4 days? It's amazing. I hope this is not a manual increase of the counter.

Dalton's covering this: https://alpha.app.net/dalton/post/32618. In a recent blog post, he also talks about how crowdfunding campaigns usually pick up steam in the last 48 hours

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#19

Post by sdqali »

arunoda wrote: post #16

This is awesome. But the real question is how they got funded more than 50% in just 4 days? It's amazing. I hope this is not a manual increase of the counter.

Dalton continuously put out updates for people and I think updates like this(http://daltoncaldwell.com/appnet-is-not-vaporware) would have pushed people who were mildly skeptic to contribute.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#20

Post by icebraining »

andrewcross wrote: post #10
acoyfellow wrote: post #2

Is this going to inspire more companies / startups to go the crowdfunding route? (I think so). How many companies are going to now cite: "App.net style" of pre-launch efforts? Is this a good or a bad thing? This is a whole new era, either way. Congrats to the App.net team!

I think we'll definitely see a lot of attempts, but I don't know if many will have much success. It's very similar to Louis C.K.'s online video. While his video was successful, it only worked because he'd already established a name for himself. Other, lesser known, comedians will have a hard time replicating that because they don't have the brand already. If first-time entrepreneurs try and use crowd-funding, I just…

That's true for every type of funding, though.
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