Thomas Edison would have been impressed if he was alive today and could see what’s coming out of Kickstarter. Zombie Edison is impressed and wants your braaaaains. Some argue, Edison never invented to much – he just had the money to hire the right people (like Nicola Tesla) and get them to churn out ideas, cherry picking the best of them. Now instead of Edison we have Kickstarter. People, on their own volition, have been taking the risk of marketing their inventions on Kickstarter, who provide the platform and keep bad projects out and police fraud. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. And they often succeed or fail for no discernible reason at all. Here are two awesome products, one doing great, the other not so.
SecureTip
Whether on a bike or on a boat in a moat with a goat, my earbuds fall out. There are lots of those wrap-around earbuds that attach themselves to the back of your ear, but they’re uncomfortable as heck. Zach Herbert & Adam Orshan developed a masterful design that hold the earbud to the outer folds of your ears. Want to rock out while Sandboarding with Richard Branson on Mars? NOT A PROBLEM.
Actually, there is a problem. They’ve only raised 10K of the 50k they needed to fund their product, in spite of all these great recommendations from Gizmag and Cult of Mac. What’s going on here? Decorative Oil Bottles seem to succeed but a great design doesn’t. The power of a great video? Perhaps – marketing is everything in the world of Kickstarter, where thousands of projects are jostling for attention. Check em out here!
Mobi-Lens
Could you forgive someone for hanging up your laundry with your camera gear? If that sounds perposterous, check out Mobi-Lens. For the hardcore photographer hipster with two iPhones and the latest apps, this seems like the ultimate ‘I’m cooler than you’ product. Well no, these aren’t vanity pieces – they’re pretty useful if you want to spice up your photos. Fish-eyes and wide-angled pictures with your iPhone or Android is no problem now. They speak to me, and I respond with ‘I wish I’d thought of that!’ And so have nearly 200-some backers! There’s a significant amount of time left – campaign ends on September 15th. A combo Fish-eyed/Wide-angle Mobi-Lens costs $60 – get in on it!
Source: Kickstarter and XKCD
