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Pebble's E-Paper Watch Exceeds $10 Million Raised On Kickstarter
- Aethaeryn 14y agoThere are apparently less than 400 Pebbles left[1] before they sell out at 85,000 watches[2]. If you wanted one and haven't ordered it yet, your opportunity is almost gone! EDIT: (30 minutes later) There are only about 150 left. EDIT: (60 minutes later) They're past 85,000, but the announcement they made said "around 85,000 Pebbles"[2] and not exactly 85,000. They could disable the preorders at any time, but there's no way to predict exactly when they're officially sold out. EDIT: (70 minutes later) They've just created a $1 tier that provides 0 watches, and they set all the other tiers to eventually run out. [1] http://computingeureka.com/pebble/ http://computingeureka.com/pebble/ [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/posts http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...
- xmmx 14y agoIs there a name for this kind of behavior? I've known about the project since day one and didn't feel like buying one, but now that there's only a few watches left, I bit the bullet and gave them my credit card.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- joezydeco 14y agoMarketing types call it the "Bandwagon Effect". http://www.marketing91.com/bandwagon-effect/ http://www.marketing91.com/bandwagon-effect/ 84,600 customers all can't be wrong, right? The project is a guaranteed success (or so you would believe) and if you don't buy now, you will literally miss the wagon...
- aqme28 14y agoSorry to be pedantic but you made a common mistake that always bothers me. Don't say "literally miss the wagon" when you mean a figurative wagon. Not attacking you or anything. Just trying to help.
- csmeder 14y agoYes, It is a mix of "Scarcity", "Limited-duration" and "social Proof". http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/scarcity http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/scarcity http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/Limited-duration http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/Limited-duration http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/social-proof http://persuasive-patterns.com/patterns/social-proof
- jaysonelliot 14y agoI'd actually say this is an example of the "scarcity effect." http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/scarcity-effect.htm http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/scarcity-... WORCHEL, LEE, AND ADEWOLE (1975) asked people to rate chocolate chip cookies. They put 10 cookies in one jar and two of the same cookies in another jar. The cookies from the two-cookie jar received higher ratings—even though the cookies were exactly the same! Not only that, but if there were a lot of cookies in the jar, and then a short time later most of the cookies were gone, the cookies that were left received an even higher rating than cookies that were in a jar where the number of cookies didn’t change. [From Neuro Web Design by Susan Weinschenck.]
- toomuchtodo 14y agoFOMO: Fear Of Missing Out http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/04/14/fomo-addiction-the-fear-of-missing-out/ http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/04/14/fomo-addict...
- Aethaeryn 14y agoUPDATE: (140 minutes later) They are now officially sold out on Kickstarter. Other reports of them selling out were premature. This means that they sold out at 6:37 PM eastern time, 3:37 PM pacific, with 85,420 watches total. The last one sold was in the $125 tier.
- simcop2387 14y agoWow and I had expected it to take a while to break the $3.3 million record that doublefine set on the site. It's honestly amazing what some of these are doing financially.
- veb 14y agoMy question is, will they actually be able to meet anyones expectations?
- melling 14y agoThis site lets you track the funding progress of Kickstarter projects: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/ http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-wa...
- devinmontgomery 14y agoAlternate title: Kickstarter raises $500K in Pebble funding round
- debacle 14y agoMaybe what we're in isn't a funding bubble, but a trust bubble? Edit: I don't mean to say that Pebble will not deliver, and in fact I think they will, but at some point one of these high-profile kickstarters is going to fail to deliver (possibly at no fault of their own) and that is going to be unfortunate for everyone involved, and will probably cause a big stir. Hopefully Kickstarter handles it well.
- DanBC 14y agoHere are two projects which are having trouble delivering. [oh, the pens have shipped, and people are very happy with them.] (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-minimal-pen http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...) (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-source-light http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-o...)
- nextparadigms 14y agoJust to make it clear for everyone, it's not e-ink display. It's a transflective LCD display, which isn't the same thing and it's not nearly as efficient as e-ink either (although I have no idea if e-ink would even work properly on a watch). My guess is it's around 2x more energy efficient than a color LCD watch. This is what they're using for Pebble: http://www.sharpmemorylcd.com/1-26-inch-memory-lcd.html http://www.sharpmemorylcd.com/1-26-inch-memory-lcd.html
- toemetoch 14y agoWith e-ink, how would one at a glance know wether the battery is dead or not?
- zumbojo 14y agoE-ink Kindles write a "Your battery is empty" message to the screen shortly before the battery becomes completely discharged. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickbilton/3636447946/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickbilton/3636447946/
- jomohke 14y agoThe same as an analog watch - when time stops.
- neurotech1 14y agoThey are now available from Mouser; http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Sharp-Microelectronics/LS013B7DH01/ http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Sharp-Microelectronics/L... I'm pretty sure that they were only added very recently. I searched a few weeks ago and they weren't listed.
- stbtrax 14y agoThey were listed when pebble went on kickstarter--someone posted it on HN. I am looking forward to experimenting with one myself.
- xsmasher 14y ago
- Timothee 14y agoI'm just learning that they're renting a billboard along 101 in San Francisco: http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-buys-san-francisco-billboard-2012-5#comments http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-buys-san-francisco-bil... According to some comments on Business Insider, such a billboard is… well, pricey, and they would get the KickStarter money only after May 18th. (I haven't confirmed that part) Could one speculate from there that they have been raising money from yet-to-be-announced traditional investors? Considering their new position (i.e. demonstrated demand), it wouldn't be that surprising.
- OzzyB 14y agoSure, I can speculate: They could very well be Factoring[1]. Since the Kickstarter payout is pretty much guaranteed at such-and-such date, they could quite easily "unlock" (factor) some of their future Accounts Receivable for a small percentage discount. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoring_(finance) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoring_(finance)
- joejohnson 14y agoOne thing I hate about finance is how every little trick is named by borrowing the name from an existing concept in mathematics which only barely relates to the financial trickery.
- smackfu 14y agoThe end result better come out good.
- ZanderEarth32 14y agoAssuming that the Pebble will cost $150 once (if) it becomes available for retail, and factoring in the fact that some of these watches might never actually ship, I'd rather invest an extra $40 once the watch comes out and I know the quality rather than risk $115 now to save $40.
- chrisacky 14y agoJust published another story here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3950628 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3950628 Pebble has now been closed on KickStarter. You cannot pick up any from the KickStarter project. If you wanted to "pre order" you will have to go through GetPebble.com when they get made available.
- goatcurious 14y agoIs this funding or working capital? Most watches come at cost through KS. They would need to seriously ramp up the supply chain to fulfill the orders in the promised timescale. And that would need expensive resources - some of which cannot be met via the $10mm (as most of it might get consumed in manufacturing). Though further traditional funding should be the least of their problems - bet the VCs are clamoring for a piece now. Hope they can find a Foxconn to manufacture everything in time and they can ramp up their operations team. My best wishes to them - really hope they nail it. I bet next few months would see war scale efforts from them.
- bwm 14y agoIn my mind this shows that crowdsourced funding + low cost prototyping (eg arduino) and manufacturing (eg 3d printing) could really disrupt consumer electronics. It'd be really cool to see the next must have smartphone/tablet built by a few guys in their basement and sold to millions of consumers.
- allbombs 14y agoinsane