The ransom model of publishing, pt. 2
Last month, I blogged about Greg Stoltze, a board-game designer who developed a "ransom" model of publishing: He would finish designing his strategy game Meatbot Massacre as soon as he received $600 in online donations; once the game was done, he put it online for anyone to download for free. It was an elegant, clever way of routing around the problem of piracy, and it worked. Indeed, it worked so well that he's set up a new ransom -- $750 -- for his next game, "... in Spaace!"
This time, Stoltze is hosting his project on Fundable.org -- a web site that is a sort of like an Amazon for ransom programs. Anyone can create a project, set a funding goal, and see who'll contribute. There aren't a whole lot of projects online yet, but my favorite is "The 'Send our Friend Nicholas to QuakeCon' Fund":
This purpose of this group action is to collect the necessary funds in order to allow our friend, Nicholas, to attend QuakeCon on August 11-14 of 2005. The amount: $125. The intended use of these funds: $70 for Hotel accomodations, and $55 for Gas to cover the 1500 mile trip.
That's so delightfully brazen -- and small-bore, given that the kid is gonna drive 1,500 miles across the country -- that I think I might actually donate 10 bucks.
(Thanks to Greg for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at July 23, 2005 10:47 PM
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sounds similar to the ansari x-prize [cf.] various software "bounties" (from fixing bugs to opensourcing code) and gov't patent buyouts :D
"New institutions and new kinds of institutions--perhaps even some that have been tried before, like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century (see Kremer (1998))--may well be necessary to achieve the fourfold objectives of (a) price equal to marginal cost, (b) entrepreneurial energy, (c) accelerating the cumulative process of research, and (d) providing appropriate financial incentives for research and development. The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision."
cheers!
Posted by: kenny at July 26, 2005 12:45 AM
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sounds similar to the ansari x-prize [cf.] various software "bounties" (from fixing bugs to opensourcing code) and gov't patent buyouts :D
"New institutions and new kinds of institutions--perhaps even some that have been tried before, like the French government's purchase and placing in the public domain of the first photographic patents in the early nineteenth century (see Kremer (1998))--may well be necessary to achieve the fourfold objectives of (a) price equal to marginal cost, (b) entrepreneurial energy, (c) accelerating the cumulative process of research, and (d) providing appropriate financial incentives for research and development. The work of Harvard economist Michael Kremer (1998, 2000), both with respect to the possibility of public purchase of patents at auction and of shifting some public research and development funding from effort-oriented to result-oriented processes (that is, holding contests for private companies to develop vaccines instead of funding research directly), is especially intriguing in its attempts to develop institutions that have all the advantages of market competition, natural monopoly, and public provision."
cheers!
Posted by: kenny![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 26, 2005 12:45 AM