The Muddy Truth About Kickstarter 'Staff Picks'

szczys writes: Crowd Funding is the wild-wild west of business financing, and it's not just the people starting campaigns that are playing without many rules. One of Kickstarter's sort algorithm triggers is the "Staff Pick." Research indicates being featured by Kickstarter staff is a huge predictor for success. But there is no published benchmark for how these are chosen. Oddly, Kickstarter only discourages users from falsely labeling their campaign as a Staff Pick. To protect backers and ensure the crowdfunding ecosystem isn't sullied by scammers, Kickstarter needs to boost their transparency starting with this Staff Pick conundrum.

Comments

It's...a staff pick.

[American AC in Paris]

When things are chosen by a "staff pick", the staff of a particular organization picks things they think look interesting. That's...the whole deal.

It's not a subjective process. It's also not a new process. Your local book, record and video stores, back when such things still existed, did this. Your local liquor store does this. This has concept has been around for ages.

The only thing that Kickstarter has to do with this entire concept is that they're one of countless organizations that do this.

Re:It's...a staff pick.

[KeithJM]

When things are chosen by a "staff pick", the staff of a particular organization picks things they think look interesting. That's...the whole deal.

It's not a subjective process.

I think you mean it's not an objective process.

Re:It's...a staff pick.

[gurps_npc]

Do any of your local stores let you go into their place of business and put a large red sticker that says "Staff Pick" on something that isn't actually a staff pick?

No?

Then you missed half the point of this article - that they only discourage people rather than forbid them from falsely claiming something is a Staff Pick.

The other half is that this is NOT a small local business, it is a very large corporation, and large corporations rarely leave things as loose as local stores do.

Kickstarter is not one of countless organizations that do this, they may very well be the single LARGEST organization that does it, and we expect more from the big guys than the little guys.

Or do you go up to a small kid selling lemonade on the side of the road and ask if they have a license to sell drinks?

Re:It's...a staff pick.

[I'm New Around Here]

Or do you go up to a small kid selling lemonade on the side of the road and ask if they have a license to sell drinks?

Actually, cops are doing that all over lately.

Re:It's...a staff pick.

[American AC in Paris]

Kickstarter is not one of countless organizations that do this, they may very well be the single LARGEST organization that does it, and we expect more from the big guys than the little guys.

Oh, unlike Vimeo ($40 mil annual revenue in 2013), Hulu (worth multiple billions of dollars), Powell's (market cap ~320 mil) or Redbox (tough to tell actual value of Redbox, but let's assume it's a few bucks north of nothing, shall we?), all hits that come right up on a quick Google search for "staff picks"?

And if you want to expand past the strict verbiage of "staff pick", there's the New York Times Editor's Choice list, Amazon's Editor's Picks, Google Play's Staff Picks, Apple's Featured Apps...

I mean, rail against staff picks on general principle, certainly. No problem whatsoever with that, even if I don't agree that it's a big problem. But don't pretend that this piece is is anything other than a hit piece/author's grudge against Kickstarter here.

Re:It's...a staff pick.

[edtice1559]

The problem with "staff picks," in general is that they aren't picked by the staff anymore. In the old days of indie music and book stores, the staff was typically comprised (at least partially) of people who were enthusiastic about the product being sold and the staff pick meant that a self-proclaimed expert really liked something. You could often trust these recommendations in the sense that the staff genuinely liked the things that they picked. Now it's a label used to trigger that nostalgia but the picks are now done by profit-maximizing algorithms and the staff has nothing to do with it.

Re:Kicked to the curb

[I'm New Around Here]

Dude, that thing looks awesome. I'm gonna order one right now and throw out all my laundry detergent. And the best part is they recharge with the power of the sun. How cool is that?

Thanks for pointing out this project. Without your help I never would have discovered such a wonderful invention.

a legal morass

[argStyopa]

I think the entire Kickstarter thing is a legal morass that will only be settled after a great deal of arguing, posturing, and lawyers making ridiculous sums of $.

I believe - if anything - the game Star Citizen (around $90 mill KS funding) will be the trigger.
Derek Smart has rightly raised a number of awkward questions about the scope, expanse, shifting goalposts, and (lack of any) due diligence on this project. I suspect that with $90 million in the pot, enough lawyers might find it interesting to pursue on a contingency-fee basis (meaning they may be seeing easily 8 figures).
Numbers that large may even make politicians take notice, and 2016 is an election year (not that any politicians would even understand the context or how it would work over them tubes).

DS is a colossal egotist, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Let's not forget that the Reformation was also started by an astonishingly self-centered egotist too.

Re:a legal morass

[nitehawk214]

Just looked... no updates since April? Ok, make that the 38 Studios of 2015, my guess is they have already ran away with the money.

Re:Kicked to the curb

[MrL0G1C]

Their claim is that sunlight builds up hydrogen peroxide which sounds highly unlikely.

Because this is what really happens:

If you leave hydrogen peroxide in a clear container in sunlight, it decomposes much faster.

I'm not great at chemistry but if the hydrogen peroxide bit is a lie then this campaign would be illegal in the UK under advertising standards rules.

And hydrogen peroxide is obviously a chemical which de facto means they are lying one way or the other.