Hasbro takes a stab at crowdfunding, starts off with massive vintage Star Wars toy

Hasbro is taking on crowdfunding and is taking an unusual approach to it. But if you’re a diehard fan of the company’s toys, Haslab, as Hasbro calls it, might be an exciting concept for you. The crowdsourcing program kicks off with something massive—quite literally. It’s a 4-foot long, 14lbs recreation of Jabba’s Sail Barge from Return of the Jedi. Launching Haslab allows the company to develop more premium toys that would seem a bit too much for the mainstream toy market. It’s for enthusiasts who are willing to shell some precious moolah for limited edition toys.

What’s unusual about this crowdsourcing platform is that Hasbro will announce a possible project and if the product meets its preorder goals, the company will make the toy. If it doesn’t the toy won’t get made and its backers won’t be charged for the preorders. In the case of the Sail Barge, its target is 5,000 preorders at a very premium price of US$500 apiece and the company hopes to reach this goal before April 13. The Barge is part of Hasbro’s newly revived 3.75” “Vintage Collection” of Star Wars action figures. It features a fully detailed interior with removable panels, fabric sails a special figure of Jabba himself, as well as a production booklet how the vehicle was translated from the movie to the figure.

Source: io9

VidCon founder opens crowdfunding for podcast-centric PodCon

You may or may not know Hank Green. And if you don’t, one easy association is his famous brother/author John Green. The duo make up the YouTube channel vlogbrothers. Hank has also started other famous YouTube channels like SciShow and Crash Course. He also created VidCon, an annual gathering of big YouTube and Vine personalities and other online video fans and enthusiasts. Now, he’s taking a stab at creating a same convention but for podcasts and aptly calling it PodCon.

The event is now being crowdfunded on Indieogogo and has raised US$30,456 of its $300,000 goal. If it gets the funding it needs, PodCon will be held in Seattle, Washington this December and will have things like workshops, panels, and live podcast recordings. Obviously, there aren’t that many concrete plans for the event yet. But Green partnered with Welcome to Nightvale’s Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor as well as Travis McElroy, who is best known for co-hosting advice show My Brother, My Brother and Me. There are a number of tiers to back so you can choose which one works for you. If you donate $90 or more, you get admission to the convention. 

Source: The Verge

PayPal to stop offering Purchase Protection coverage for crowdfunding projects

The next time you back a crowdfunding project, don’t expect PayPal to have your back. The service is revising its policy and plans to get rid of Purchase Protection coverage for crowdfunding projects starting June 25^th. This change is seen as PayPal’s way to protect itself against the frequency of fraud and failure to deliver of projects on crowdfunding sites. This new policy means that even if you dispute the charge if or when a project fails, the product is broken, or completely fraudulent, PayPal won’t provide relief. This should affect Indiegogo backers more as Kickstarter payments aren’t protected by PayPal already.

Source: PayPal | Via: The Verge

Pebble encourages smartstrap development with US $1 Million funding for successful concepts

Pebble is putting their money into encouraging smartstrap development for their upcoming Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel wearables. The smartstrap allows for expanded functionality on Pebbles by making the strap a peripheral. Various concepts have been revealed including one that enables direct connection to an LTE signal. Another concept will add GPS, NFC, OLED displays and varied other components to the Pebble Time.

Pebble pledged 1 million US dollars to encourage development and commercialization of othe smartstrap projects. Interested inventors can get a team together, build a prototype and place their project on a crowfunding platform and Pebble will offer the necessary support to make sure the projects see the light of day. I'm curious to see how far the smartstrap development can go and how much it can add to the Pebble Time.