Comments on: Can a publisher use crowdfunding to replace ads?

By: Corinna vanGerwen

Corinna vanGerwen — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:04:55 +0000

The Tyee also has a history of raising funds from readers for specific investigative reporting features. http://thetyee.ca/About/Fellowshipfunds/

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:53:58 +0000

Isn’t that called “subscription”?

By: Wicked Sunny

Wicked Sunny — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:18:02 +0000

I am giving ads space inside game for my video game crowd funding campaign.
http://igg.me/p/115374?a=653395

By: Matt Demers

Matt Demers — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:06:20 +0000

“if you think about it as a series of comics rather than a website, what they’ve done is set up a project to fund a year’s worth of comics without ads.”

So if I set up a KickStarter to fund a year’s worth of me writing about comic books on Tumblr without having to get a “real” job to keep the lights on, would that be cool with KickStarter?

By: Matteo Fabiano

Matteo Fabiano — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:58:51 +0000

Isn’t there a long history of supporter-funded media e.g. KQED, KCSM, NPR…

By: Vivek Shenoy

Vivek Shenoy — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:55:55 +0000

Matthew have to agree with you here. We need to think of this as the payment to get one year’s subscription of the content out.

Also, from a revenue model this to me seems to be a crowdsourced subscription model where people buy subscriptions based on value perceived not value defined. However, this is chum change compared to what a publisher with good traffic can make – but Penny Arcade is not about the money it would seem…

By: Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:37:20 +0000

We (YourSports) successfully crowdfunded the media rights for historic NCAA football games and high school games. It was the only profitable business model for this expensive content… Lots of experience in this arena. My gut says this model can be scaled.

By: Brick Rucker

Brick Rucker — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:56:54 +0000

There is a company called Vuier, that does exactly what this is trying to accomplish.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:42:35 +0000

I’m not sure that’s true, Neil — if you think about it as a series of comics rather than a website, what they’ve done is set up a project to fund a year’s worth of comics without ads. If it works, I assume they will convert it to some kind of regular funding. I believe they also checked with Kickstarter before they started, in order to make sure it was within the approved guidelines.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:39:51 +0000

Those are good points, Glenn — and I agree that the goal doesn’t really fit the usual Kickstarter model of a specific project. But then maybe they just want to take advantage of a popular platform to raise awareness of the idea, and then if it works they can turn it into a traditional membership approach. In any case, thanks for the comment.