zlacker

Not that I'm accusing Dalton of doing this, but when croudfunding without using a platform like kickstarter, it might be too easy to fake backer numbers in order to meet the goal or inflate popularity.

What this means for the future: Companies will announce croudfunding and then fake amazing numbers in order to appear popular and gain lots of press.

I can see the headline now: "ACME Software raises $3 million in first 24 hours!" Actual funds raised: $250.

>>jtokop+(OP)
A number of people have raised this point to Dalton and he has promised that he will do a third party verification of all funding promises.

For example, see this: https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234698066245074945 and https://twitter.com/daltonc/status/234399350275571714

EDIT: Added a link to Twitter conversation showing more context.

>>jtokop+(OP)
https://alpha.app.net/dalton/post/32618

"We are using Stripe, so it's easy to audit." - Dalton Caldwell

>>jtokop+(OP)
It's an interesting point, if you look at the video statistics it has only had 31,000 plays which means for every 4 people that watch the video at least 1 spends $50. However, Stripe has access to their payment info so it's possible to prove whether or not this is faked.

Actually, that's an interesting question: would it be fraud to fake the last $xxx,xxx of a crowd sourcing drive?

>>sdqali+9
Dalton also says this on app.net: https://alpha.app.net/dalton/post/32618

>>citric+g
I backed the project without watching the video. The posts on sites like DaringFireball and Marco.org had already convinced me. I doubt I'm the only one.

>>jtokop+(OP)
See this: http://daltoncaldwell.com/we-did-it

>>unimpr+e
I'd like to audit it right now. How can I do so?

(The point is: it's not easy to audit. Not that I actually care one way or the other.)

>>Samuel+q1
Same here.

>>jrockw+vf
Easy != accessible to everyone.

Easy == it wouldn't take a lot of work for him to allow someone to verify it.

>>jrockw+vf
It's rather unclear what Dalton means here. The interpretation that seems likeliest to me is that Dalton can easily provide independent evidence to a professional auditor (i.e., someone who can be given trusted access to sensitive data, and someone who isn't easily induced to lie on a client's behalf) that the tally is correct.

Unless it becomes routine to actually employ these auditors, that doesn't really answer jtokoph's worry.

Postscript - Indeed, that's what he meant: on http://daltoncaldwell.com/we-did-it he says "In the very near future I will ask an impartial 3rd party take a look at our data (while preserving all privacy of our backers) and publicly verify that the join.app.net was operated in an honest manner."

>>guscos+ti
AFAIK Vimeo calculates only fully watched videos, so it's 30000 viewers who watched the video to the end.