A little over a month ago we talked about the launch of the Ubuntu Edge indiegogo campaign. At that point I was highly skeptical that the campaign would meet the halfway point. Well, last week the funding closed and it was not even close.
The goal was an ambitious $32 million, which is 3 times larger than the biggest successful crowd funding to date the
Pebble watch Kickstarter at a little over $10 million. Needless to say, most people (myself included) did not think this was going to happen. There were so many reasons why this wasn’t likely, but mostly the goal was too damn high.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Canonical/Ubuntu hater, in fact I have the greatest respect for them, but this was nothing than a PR ploy. A clever PR ploy that you’ll see copied (poorly) repeatedly now, but it is pure (free) publicity. Many news sites carried articles at launch and closure, from blogs to mainstream media alike — it was rather clever marketing.
Though OMGUbuntu did make a valid point. The Edge hit $12.8 million, making it the biggest crowd funding campaign ever. The Pebble gets to keep the title (for now) of biggest AND successful campaign.
Oh, and as expected, there is a wonderful little piece of fluff from Mark Shuttleworth to wrap it all up, as expected.
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