Do you or have you thought about using a site like Kickstarter.com to fund your Photo…

13 Nov 2011 admin In G+ Posts

Do you or have you thought about using a site like Kickstarter.com to fund your Photo or artistic projects?

I would love to start a site dedicated to photographers and similar artists where it works like Kickstarter and allows people to fund creative work or equipment purchases for artists that might never have been able to push their career forward could with donations or assistance from other photographers…

Has anyone used Kickstarter to try to do this? Have you been successful? Would it need a different audience?

Very interested in people's points of view on something like this…

Maybe we can get the big guns involved…. +Colby Brown +Robert Scoble +Trey Ratcliff +Thomas Hawk +Lisa Bettany +Catherine Hall +Frederick Van Johnson et all..

What are your opinions?

Would the ability for people to privately fund artistic projects be a good thing?

Would it turn into a disaster?

Would zero or limited payoff to the investor be acceptable?

Much like Kickstarter selling your creative idea is a key part to most sussessful projects – this could help people hone their creative pitches and get support in the process..

So community – what do you think?

This was spurred by the recent success story of +sly vegas and his need to sell everything just to survive, then the community has chipped in to help him recover what he needed to lose and allow him to continue on his career path….

Micropayments for artist support?

Hey +Google+ could we do this with Google Checkout? right from an artists Google+ page?

Comments: 20

  1. Younes Bounhar 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    That sounds like a great idea. I've been thinking of using kickstarter for sometime now…what would this site do that kickstarter doesn't?

  2. Tom Bielecki 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    I've seen photography on kickstarter before!

  3. Brent Burzycki 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Younes Bounhar That is the question really – do we need a more artist centric site or will Kickstarter do it? I am not sure people that want to support photography and art are on Kickstarter?

    So the question goes out to everyone for feedback….

  4. Brent Burzycki 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Tom Bielecki I just searched there and there are 4 projects listed.. and they are only sort of photo related… I mean they have a category….

    Maybe I need to post up a project and see what kind of feedback it might get..

    I am not even sure the site needs to make money other than to cover costs… but act as a portal to connect creatives with funding….

  5. Gary Howard 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    as i understand it, Kickstarter gives the investors shares in the final product? Is that correct?
    If so,your site will have to have something to give back OR they are just donations.

  6. Glen Berry 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    I've thought about this myself. I'd love to see something like this develop and prosper on either KickStarter or Google+.

  7. Nick Young-Soares 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Gary Howard I do not believe so. You just give them incentives, or you can offer nothing in return. For a photography project you could offer nice prints or something like that for donors.

  8. Glen Berry 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    KickStarter has the obvious advantage of already existing, and serving a very similar purpose. However, Google+ has demonstrated a great fondness for photographers and artists, which could be a big asset. What about the idea of starting a KickStarter project, and then promoting it from Google+? (Of course, it could be promoted in other venues as well.)

  9. Brent Burzycki 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Glen Berry How about starting a kickstarter project for a site to replace kickstarter….. they probably would not appreciate that….

    I am curious about opinions on needing another location.. or simply / possibly using kickstarter to accomplish the same thing…the question is does kickstarter have traction for artists and not product creators…

  10. Brent Burzycki 13 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Patrick Hall what are the URL's?

  11. Ilene Hoffman 14 Nov 2011 Reply

    I had posted this in the other thread but want to see if others had a thought on this also: I wonder… aren't there other ways of sharing that can be implemented too? Example: You have a photo book you read and can pass on to someone else, if they pay shipping, perhaps? Or someone has left over paper they don't like, but someone else likes it and can use it? Sort of a combination BBS buy/sell and Freecycle? Actually, a used equipment buy/sell might be useful too. I suppose a circle could be created for these kinds of things … ::: just thinking out loud:::

  12. Vincent Mo 14 Nov 2011 Reply

    What a cool idea 🙂

  13. Glen Berry 14 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Vincent Mo You're more familiar with the Google+ TOS than I am. Would it be okay, if I had a photography project on KickStarter, and I posted an occasional note about it here on Google+? I see some big-name photographers posting links to their commercial websites with every photo they post to Google+. I think posting an occasional note about a KickStarter project would be ok, as long as it wasn't posted frequently, and it wasn't "spammed" into other people's non-related threads. Am I correct?

  14. Brent Burzycki 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    Did I miss a section that stated you cannot link to a site like kick starter… I know there is a section specific to not linking to commercial porn sites…..

  15. Vincent Mo 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    I'm not personally aware of anything that disallows it, but I can't speak officially for Google b/c I don't know for sure.

  16. Glen Berry 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Vincent Mo Ok, thanks. If I get a KickStarter project started, I'll double check the TOS before I post about it here, but I don't think there's any real conflict.

  17. Ilene Hoffman 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Brent Burzycki As I ponder your good KickStarter project idea, I find myself wondering if it's a good idea to take something like this off of G+. In the past I've found that you lose a lot of audience every time there's an offsite link, even a worthy project.

  18. Brent Burzycki 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    I would love to be able to do project funding right here on g+
    Present idea to the community
    Fund
    Deliver
    Done….

  19. Ilene Hoffman 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    How about creating a G+ Page to do it?

  20. Brent Burzycki 15 Nov 2011 Reply

    +Ilene Hoffman That would be fine but sadly pages are one way interaction for the most part – there is no way to post to the page for people to preset their idea… also as I can tell there is no real way to direct message a page owner… so really there is no way for people to submit an idea…

    Unless i am really missing some features of pages….

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