Tag Archives: Kickstarter

BELLINGCAT: SOLVING WORLD’S INJUSTICES VIA CROWD-SOURCING

March 11, 2019 Marc Bouwman Leave a comment

Where traditional spy agencies like the CIA, MI6 and Interpol fail to identify and answer global criminal cases, a new independent investigative journalism platform has been created that utilizes crowd-sourcing in order to solve these cases. Sounds almost superhero-like, doesn’t it? Well, Bellingcat might just be the ‘crime-solver’ the world was actually looking for.

The business model

Bellingcat identifies itself as “the home of online investigation”, as it uses open source initiatives and social media in order to investigate criminal activities and conflicts around the world. By bringing together professionals and volunteers, Bellingcat provides a platform where these injustices can be tackled collectively. (Bellingcat, n.a.) The collective approach to problem-solving can be traced back within the name. “Belling the cat” stems from a tale about a group of mice deciding that the best way to protect themselves from a cat is to place a bell around the cat’s neck, but are then unable to find a volunteer to attach the bell. “Therefore, we are the mice”, according to founder and CEO Elliot Higgins. (Doward, 2018)

The concept started out as a hobby by British journalist Eliot Higgins, once a college drop-out from his study Media Technology at Southampton University. Initially, he started writing blogs on conflicts, such as in Libya, under the pseudonym of Brown Moses. He realized that social media content on these conflicts were being largely ignored within investigations. Therefore, he began collecting this content and combining them to make compelling cases. (Doward, 2018) Eventually in 2014, the Bellingcat platform was launched with crowdfunding help from their Kickstarter campaign. As of now, they consist of 11 full-time employees, with their head office located in Leicester. To keep the business running, paid workshops and seminars on online investigative techniques are given to create revenue and motivate individuals to contribute. Increased interest from NGO’s such as the Google Digital News Initiative and charities such as the Dutch Postcodeloterij have also provided Bellingcat with grants in order for them to expand their operations. (Matthews, 2018)

Methods, techniques and contributions

Known as OSINT (open-source intelligence), Bellingcat’s method of journalism collects data from publicly available sources to piece together, debunk or verify a story. The investigative technique involves strolling the internet and then cross-referencing social media posts, tweets, news photographs, databases, Google Street View and maps into a detailed mosaic of apparently undisputable data. (Matthews, 2018) This is done by professionals who work full-time at Bellingcat, leading these investigations and are supported by a larger group of “amateur investigators” who, from the comfort of their own homes, voluntarily perform these methods. They meet and talk in Facebook groups, subreddits and threads of direct messages on Twitter, discussing new tools and techniques and working with any changes to social networks that might help or hinder their work. “A lot of people who are involved with Bellingcat are from those communities, and have a kind of nerdy desire or obsession with problem-solving when it relates to big stories”, says Press Association social media journalist, Alastair Reid. (Chakelian, 2018)

Due to the large pool of volunteering contributors, the ‘Wisdom of the Crowds’ phenomenon arises, where input from a larger group results in more trustworthy answers. Bellingcat’s information has been judged watertight enough to be used by the official commission investigating the downing of MH-17 and has been cited in the United Nations as proof of Syrian war crimes (Matthews, 2018). Bellingcat contributors found photos on the internet of fourteen Russian officers posing with the alleged BUK-rocket which shot Malaysian Airline flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur out of the air near Donetsk, Ukraine (Doward, 2018). Next to that, contributors were able to pinpoint the blame for chemical weapon attacks by the Syrian regime. The latest investigation that caught the global news headlines and is still ongoing is about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England. Together with Russian website The Insider, Bellingcat contributors were able to identify one of the wanted men by downloading passport data of millions of Russian citizens. The suspect was found to be Anatoliy Chepiga, who is an officer from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence, being active behind the alias Ruslan Boshirov. (Doward, 2018)

Allegations, refutations and potential

Although much praise is being given to Bellingcat, also allegations and critic has been given from mainly the Russian government. Allegations vary from being accused as a CIA information warfare department to spreading fake news and illegally retrieving their information (Matthews, 2018). As mentioned, most of these allegations come from the Russian government. This is not that surprising, as many of the investigations led by Bellingcat see Russia playing a large role within the injustices (e.g. MH17, Skripal).

“When Russia started attacking our work I’d already spent two years building up a reputation. All they’ve managed to do since is to prove that whenever they end up attacking our work it’s because we end up being right about something. The more noise they make, the more truthful something appears, basically”, according to Bellingcat director Elliot Higgins (Doward, 2018). Moreover, in many of the investigations, Bellingcat is ahead of Western intelligence agencies when it comes to finding evidence due to Bellingcat’s willingness to buy information on the black market or retrieve it from pirate sites, making them better than governments at gathering information from open sources. (Matthews, 2018) Therefore, they are proving to be a highly efficient independent agency, simply leveraging the power of active member participation of a large and diverse group of contributors.

It is safe to say that Bellingcat’s potential is huge. They are still a relatively young platform, growing every day. As more volunteers join, more information will be found which will also prove to be more trustworthy. This will result in more support from NGO’s, charities and eventually official government systems. Recently, the Dutch Postcodeloterij funded them half a million euros in order to set up a new office in The Hague, the city home to the International Court of Justice (Walker, 2019). Will it just be a matter of time for Bellingcat, an open crowd-sourced investigative platform, to become the global leader in solving worldwide crime and an official authority within the constitutional state? Time will tell, but it is certain that exciting times are ahead.

Bibliography

Bellingcat, (n.a.). “About”. Bellingcat.com.Retrieved from <https://www.bellingcat.com/about/>.

Doward J., (2018).“How a college drop–out became a champion of investigative journalism”. The Guardian. Retrieved from <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/30/bellingcat-eliot-higgins-exposed-novichok-russian-spy-anatoliy-chepiga>.

Matthews, O., (2018). “How Bellingcat outfoxes the world’s spy agencies”. The Spectator. Retrieved from <https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/how-bellingcat-outfoxes-the-worlds-spy-agencies/>.

Chakelian A., (2018). “What is Bellingcat? Behind the tactics revealing the Skripal suspect and Cameroon killers”. NewStatesman. Retrieved from <https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2018/09/what-bellingcat-behind-tactics-revealing-skripal-suspect-and-cameroon-killers>.

Walker J., (2019). “Bellingcat to establish new office in The Hague after €500,000 funding win through Dutch postcode lottery”. PressGazette. Retrieved from <https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bellingcat-to-establish-new-office-in-the-hague-after-e500000-funding-win-through-dutch-postcode-lottery/>.

Articles

The Effect of Perceived Impact on Crowd-Funding Contributions

March 5, 2017 mvanspaendonck Leave a comment

By Madeleine van Spaendonck (365543ms)

When deciding to fund a project on a crowd-funding platform, does it matter to you how close it is to its target? This is what researchers Kuppuswamy and Bayus (2017) investigated in their study “Does my contribution to your crowdfunding project matter?”. Prior scholarly work in this field has focused mostly on the significance of early contributions, and their ability to signal quality and lessen project uncertainty (Colombo et al., 2015). They found that people financially support projects when they believe their contribution will have an impact. Using a panel-data approach, the study examined 10,000 randomly-selected funded and unfunded Kickstarter projects (posted between 2012-2014), with the following variables.

The results reveal the following phenomena, forming the basis of the proposed “impact theory”:

Additional backer support for a project will be higher as its cumulative funding approaches its target goal.
Additional backer support for a project will drop sharply after the target is reached. After this point, people are likely to prefer other projects that do not have sufficient funding and where their financial help is thus perceived to have more impact. Results 1 and 2 combined form the ‘goal gradient’ effect.
Moderating factors: this effect is strongest when backer support is likely to have the highest impact; this is when the project is close to its funding deadline, has a small funding goal, or has limited early support [figures 1, 2 and 3].

The figures illustrate U-shaped patterns for funding contributions over time. From a customer-centric perspective, backers are thus motivated by the target goal of the project and its proximity. For both pro-social reasons and the opportunity to receive the promised rewards, backers want the project to succeed (Gerber & Hui, 2013).

Strengths, Weaknesses and Future Research Directions

The paper offers new insights into crowd-funding behaviours by empirically studying its dynamics over time. For example, the ‘impact theory’ can explain the “Kickstarter effect”, which is the observation that more than 90% of projects that achieve at least 30% of their goal will eventually reach their target. People want to make an impactful contribution, which means that projects that are near – but not past – their target are most likely to receive support. Other crowd-funding phenomena, such as herding, cannot account for this by themselves. A weakness of the study is that the outcome measure is only focused on whether or not a contribution was made. To determine whether people voluntarily contribute more when they believe it will make an impact, a future research direction would be to measure contribution amounts.

Managerial Implications

The study highlights several practical implications for entrepreneurs. Setting the appropriate goal has a high impact on potential funding. A too-high goal makes it challenging to get close enough to the target for the goal gradient effect to arise. However, a too-low goal may prematurely halt contributions, because support declines after the target is reached. Furthermore, communicating the target goal and the goal process in the form of updates/reminders can increase contributions, as this also triggers the goal gradient effect.

Sources:

Colombo, M., Franzoni, C., & Rossi-Lamastra, C., (2015). Internal social capital and the attraction of early contributions in crowdfunding projects. Entrep. Theory Pract. 39(1), 75–100.

Gerber, E., Hui, J., (2013). Crowdfunding: motivations and deterrents for participation. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. 20 (6), 1–32.

Kuppuswamy, V., & Bayus L, B. (2017). Does my contribution to your crowdfunding project matter?. Journal of Business Venturing, 32(1), 72-89.

Cover photo:

Gil C. via Shutterstock.com for VentureBeat, (2017), Kickstarter Headline [ONLINE]. Available at: http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/01/kickstarter-acquires-video-streaming-community-platform-huzza-opens-first-office-outside-the-u-s/ [Accessed 3 March 2017].

Business Case

Coolest Cooler: 21st Century Cooler that’s Actually Cooler!

May 3, 2015 dannyexalto Leave a comment

Consumer co-creation and crowdfunding go hand in hand. Consumers co-create value by funding the entrepreneur’s project on crowdfunding platforms. These platforms have brought forth awesome products: the Pebble Time watch, the OUYA videogame console, MaKey MaKey and many more! In this blog I would like to go into more depth about another awesome product brought to life through crowdfunding: the Coolest Cooler!

The Coolest Cooler, sometimes called the most successful campaign on Kickstarter ever, raised 13,285,266 dollar from 62,642 funders during its 52-day campaign. That equals to more than 265 times the projected goal. Pretty impressive!

What is this Coolest Cooler? Yes, it is a cooler, but not your average one. This cooler is ready for the 21^st century! “The Coolest Cooler is 60 quarts of AWESOME packed with so much fun you’ll look for excuses to get outside more often.” Its founder Ryan Grepper calls the Coolest Cooler a “portable party”. It contains a lot of practical functions a traditional cooler lacks. With the Coolest Cooler comes a built-in ice crushing blender for those margaritas or smoothies on the beach, a removable waterproof Bluetooth speaker, an USB charger for when your electronics are running low on battery, a cooler divider which can also function as a cutting board, a bottle opener, integrated storage for plates and knives, extra wide easy rolling tires (which makes it easier to use it on sandy beaches), gear tie-downs and built-in LED lights to light up the contents for when it is dark outside.

Given those impressive statistics about the funding this project received, you would think it was an instant success. However, what if I told you that before raising more than 13 million dollar in August 2014, it failed to raise 125,000 dollar in December 2013?

What turned this failure into a major success? According to the question “What did you do differently this time around?” in the FAQ section on the campaign page it was a combination of multiple factors. First of all, seasonality played a role. People are much more interested in coolers in the summer than in the winter. Naturally, when it is freezing outside, the last thing you will do is spending a day with your friends at the beach or at the park. Secondly, crowding in effects were present. They had a group of passionate supporters from their first campaign, who were willing to actively promote the project. And finally, of course, they learned from the feedback about the first concept and turned it into an improved product. Also, they lowered the bar to 50,000 dollar.

Nowadays, you can sign up for a waiting list to buy the Coolest Cooler when it is for sale to the public.

What do you think about the Coolest Cooler? Do you know any other awesome products created through crowdfunding?

References:

http://coolest.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryangrepper/coolest-cooler-21st-century-cooler-thats-actually (all three images retrieved from this page)

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/29/smallbusiness/coolest-cooler-kickstarter-campaign-ends/

Articles, Business Case, Opinion

To The Stars and Beyond – A Bright Future For Co-creation

April 26, 2015 joostmartijndekok Leave a comment

Howdy!

As I recently wrote about Local Motors, an online co-creation initiative to launch the first 3D printed car, I would like to point you to yet another fascinating example of co-creation: Project Dragonfly.

The Dragonfly project aims to explore interstellar flight (a space mission that goes beyond our solar system!) through leveraging not only technologies such as complex computing and the miniaturisation of space flight components, but phenomena such as co-creation, design competitions and crowdfunding as well.

Now, although the technologies involved to get a satellite to travel to other stars is fascinating stuff (the mission enhances a laser-propelled spacecraft that ‘sails’ through space, more information here) I would like to point you to the way the project leverages co-creation, quite the way as local Motors does: through design-based competitions. The difference between Local Motors and Project Dragonfly however is that Local Motors pays royalties on each car sale to successful designers, whereas Project Dragonfly awards fixed sums of money to successful contestants in the form of a prize.

Design competitions are more and more used by new initiatives, but how do they work? First, the initiators define their goals and set up proper design requirements in order to identify so-called ‘performance drivers’ and ‘showstoppers’. Within the limits of these requirements, students, scientist, innovators and entrepreneurs are then invited to come up with innovations. Deliverables of teams participating in such a competition consists of a final design report, which covers all areas that are relevant to makt a mission a success and to return scientific data. With DragonFly for example, a team could report new findings on instruments, communication technology or new usage of power supply. Also, teams have to research economic and technological feasibility. Instead of granting one prize, competitions (as is the case with Dragonfly) offer cash prizes for multiple areas of technological development, allowing multiple teams of people to innovate and succeed in a particular area. Hence, design competitions speed up technological advancement in multiple areas at a given point in time. Finally, design entries are evaluated by industry experts and winners are chosen. The results then could form as a basis for future technology development of a mission. Participants are invited to continue working on their project or could be offered a contract to join the initiative. The design competition itself is financed through a crowdfunding campaign. Funds raised allow the organisation to market, raise awareness about and support the design competition.

It is great to see more and more initiatives leveraging co-creation to make steps in technological advancements. One wonders what potential co-creation beholds for the future. Will it one day enable us to travel beyond the stars?

For more information read the original article from the blog Centauri Dreams.

Mini Cases

Warning: Fraudfunding

May 1, 2014 osacorn Leave a comment

Over the past few years, crowdfunding platforms have become more popular. Just within 5 years, the number of the platforms had risen from 21 websites in 2007 to 143 websites in 2011 (a). Crowdfunding platforms offer the opportunities for people to pursue their dreams or to raise money for good a cause. On the other end of the spectrum, these platforms also provide opportunities for investment. However, as the popularity goes up, controlling this growing community is challenging since there are no concrete law or regulations, as can be seen in fraud cases occurring across crowdfunding platforms.

Take for example the Kobe-red project on Kickstarter, which was intended to raise money for beef-based jerky made with 100% organic and beer-fed Japanese cow. This project was supported by 3,252 funders generating over $120,000! Being as successful, it was approached by two filmmakers who would like to include this project in a documentary called Kickstarted. Looking back on hindsight, it was then discovered that many features provided by the project creators on the page were suspicious, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the project. Continue reading Warning: Fraudfunding →