Techdirt. Stories filed under "budget" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "budget"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:32:00 PDT Kickstarter Keeps Funding Bigger And Bigger Projects Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120416/10585918505/kickstarter-keeps-funding-bigger-bigger-projects.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120416/10585918505/kickstarter-keeps-funding-bigger-bigger-projects.shtml
And yet... we've discussed how last year, Kickstarter users funded nearly $100 million in projects, and this year it's predicted to go much higher. And, already, we saw Kickstarter pass its first few million dollar projects. Then, late last week, the folks behind the Pebble e-paper watch announced that they were using Kickstarter to do pre-sales of their new iPhone and Android versions (previously they'd only offered a Blackberry version). The watch itself is certainly pretty cool. A smartwatch which is totally customizable, has a variety of apps, and basically acts as an interface with your phone (and it looks good).
And lots and lots of people agreed. Within just 28 hours they had already passed $1 million. $2 million ticked off soon after. It's now approaching $4.5-million, making it the highest revenue Kickstarter project ever—and it's the fastest to get to those kinds of numbers.

No, we're still not talking about the huge budgets around Hollywood blockbuster movies -- but we're already going well past what the most expensive albums cost to record. But, more importantly, it's not difficult to see the trend lines here. And, Kickstarter has only been around for about three years. Go back to the beginning of Hollywood. How long did it take the traditional methods to get around to funding $3 million movies?

As Kickstarter (and similar platforms) become more and more popular, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility to see a major motion picture funded via such a platform. This isn't to say (as I know someone will accuse) that this is the only way that such things will be funded. But it does highlight, yet again, that if there's demand, there will be ways to fund these things. If you don't think the future is full of amazing opportunities, you're simply not paying attention.

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]]> watch-'em-grow http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120416/10585918505 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:00:57 PST Justice Department Wants $5 Million To Bolster Its Efforts As Hollywood's Private Police Force Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120215/04524517768/justice-department-wants-5-million-to-bolster-its-efforts-as-hollywoods-private-police-force.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120215/04524517768/justice-department-wants-5-million-to-bolster-its-efforts-as-hollywoods-private-police-force.shtml cutting extraneous expenditures, one area where it's seeking more money is to expand the Justice Department's copyright enforcement efforts. You see, this is what happens when you hand the Justice Department over to the RIAA and MPAA. DOJ is seeking an extra $5 million to focus on these kinds of efforts, to hire 14 new employees, including nine lawyers, claiming that it's "had an increase in the number of cases that we're dealing with in IP." Oh really? You mean like the case of Dajaz1? The site that the DOJ illegally held and censored for over a year? Perhaps if they had a few more lawyers on staff, someone would have taken the time to realize that they were supposed to give the domain back within a specified time frame. Or perhaps they could have used those people to realize that the site was posting music sent by the copyright holders. Of course, that's not what would happen. Instead, they'd just focus on seizing more sites and creating more collateral damage. The real question, of course, should be why are we allowing the government to be Hollywood's private police force?

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]]> regulatory-capture http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120215/04524517768 Mon, 4 Apr 2011 12:27:21 PDT Open Data, Transparency Sites That Helped Gov't Save Billions To Be Shut Down Over $30 Million? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110404/10243113767/open-data-transparency-sites-that-helped-govt-save-billions-to-be-shut-down-over-30-million.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110404/10243113767/open-data-transparency-sites-that-helped-govt-save-billions-to-be-shut-down-over-30-million.shtml failings on the promised transparency front, the one area where they actually had done some good was with their work on the IT side, where the CTO and CIO had created some pretty cool websites sharing important data with the public, and pushing federal agencies to be a lot more transparent about their federal IT spending. Just last week, they announced plans to open source the famed ITDashboard.gov software, noting that it "was a major component of the process the Federal Government employed to save over $3 billion in just its first two years of deployment."

And now they're shutting it down.

There were some rumors last week, but reports are now saying that it's confirmed that the government will be shutting down a variety of its "open" data sites, including ITDashboard, data.gov and others, because the House has only allocated $2 million for electronic government activities, rather than the $35 million the White House requested:
"We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year," the official said. "We are looking at a pass-the-hat approach, but it could be challenging to get that done in time."

The White House requested $35 million for the e-government fund in 2011. The House allocated only $2 million in its bill, H.R. 1. The Senate, meanwhile, would provide $20 million for the e-government fund.

"The continuing resolution says we can only spend what we would reasonably expect to get during the fiscal year, and we have no reasonable expectation to get more than a couple of millions of dollars," the source said.
There are some efforts underway to try to save the sites, and people are pointing out how incredibly backwards this proposal is. In an effort to save a few million upfront, it will inevitably cost jobs and a lot more money on the back end through less efficiency in government.

I'm all for cutting unnecessary government spending, and I'm not necessarily convinced that these projects need $35 million per year (though, given how much terrible paywalls cost, perhaps this is a bargain), but this just doesn't make much sense at all. It's one area where the government has really been doing some good, increasing both efficiency and transparency... and the response is to cut off their funding?

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]]> lovely http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110404/10243113767 Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:59:48 PST Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110221/03540213188/can-someone-explain-how-sponsoring-nascar-is-good-use-taxpayer-funds-if-funding-sesame-street-is-not.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110221/03540213188/can-someone-explain-how-sponsoring-nascar-is-good-use-taxpayer-funds-if-funding-sesame-street-is-not.shtml stop funding NPR and PBS are so vehemently in favor of sponsoring NASCAR? Frankly, as a fan of both NPR and PBS, but not a fan of governments overspending, I actually think the complaints against pulling the funding from both are a bit overblown. I think there are some creative things that both NPR and PBS could do to make up the difference if they lost federal funding. However, if we are going to cut public broadcasting, then it seems only reasonable to cut sponsoring NASCAR as well, doesn't it? I'm curious how folks who claim to support smaller government are defending such sponsorship of a private, for-profit operation with taxpayer funding?

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]]> just-curious-which-standard-to-use http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110221/03540213188 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:58:00 PDT 2009 Budget Includes $9.4 Million For FBI IP Enforcement Agents Kevin Donovan http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090317/0856494150.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090317/0856494150.shtml favorite lawyers. Now, thanks to the $410 billion omnibus spending bill approved by Congress and Obama, the FBI has nearly $10 million more dollars to spend on intellectual property enforcement. The money will fund 2 field officers at each existing Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit as well as the creation of a new unit at FBI headquarters to work specifically on multi-district IP cases. This news comes soon after Obama spoke warmly about innovation and start-ups -- two things which hardly need more IP headaches -- so it will be important to watch carefully who he appoints as the newly created IP Czar (though things hardly look good thus far).

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]]> wanna-bet-who-snuck-those-provisions-in-there? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090317/0856494150 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:48:00 PDT President Obama Still Missing The Point: Include The Public In The Process, Not Just The Selling Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090316/1918324140.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090316/1918324140.shtml a state secret. However, more troubling is this fundamental disconnect between what the administration seems to think "participation" in the process means -- and what it really should mean. Rather than actually having people participate, it seems the administration is a lot more focused on having people sell.

That's not the same.

We saw it in the stimulus plan -- which was written by the same political insiders, and then the various email lists and social network connections were used to try to get the public to support the bill -- and now we're seeing the same thing with the budget. Apparently, the DNC is putting on a big push to use the 13-million emails collected during the campaign to help urge passage of Obama's budget, with David Plouffe claiming this is "the first major engagement" of that public list in the legislative process.

But that's the problem. This is a bit late to be engaging everyone. The budget's already been written. Shouldn't participation included more openness earlier in the process and more of a real way to participate to get these people to actually buy into a budget that they had input on? But that's not what we're getting. We're getting the same stuff, handed down from on high by the same political operatives, and being told that the people's "participation" is to help this budget get passed.

I would imagine people would be a lot more excited about doing that if they'd actually been asked to help out in the process. I'm glad that the administration is trying to reach out to people more, but so far it's doing so in a very fake way. It's not getting people to really participate in the process at all. It's just looking at them as a way to help sell. That's not the same.

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]]> the-difference-between-transparency-and-outreach http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090316/1918324140