Kickstarter

Friends of Hypothes.is,

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thanks to you, we've crossed $100k with time to spare! What an extraordinary day! Thanks to the 112 people who gave new donations and to the 39 people who increased their donations in the past 24 hours. Special thanks to Joe Shapiro who gave the major gift a few hours ago that put us over the top.

And, of course, enormous thanks to Sunil Paul for matching every single donation that has been made during the Kickstarter campaign so far. His match has no cap and he will continue to match any donations that come in for the rest of today up to the Kickstarter deadline.

Feel like celebrating?   We do. If you’re in San Francisco, plan to join us tonight at 8pm for an informal toast our 750+ donors and the fact that we now have funding to start building Hypothes.is. Location tbd.

Once we come down from cloud nine, we’ll be back in touch soon to fulfill the Kickstarter rewards and to keep you posted on our progress.

Thanks so much for your support!

Dan

“As a writer, I do a lot of research online and I frequently turn up ‘common knowledge’ answers which prove to be incorrect. Because ‘knowledge’ on the web gets echoed all over the place, it can be really difficult to discover first sources, who originally said what, whether they said it at all. I'd love to see something that cuts through the echo chamber effect and lets me hone in on original or documented sources.” - Rose Vine

http://hypothes.is
http://twitter.com/#!/hypothes_is
http://www.facebook.com/myhypothesis

Friends of Hypothes.is,

You are giving us such great momentum! Since Wednesday night’s match announcement, we’ve raised $13k from 145 new donors and 56 increased donations. Amazing. Curious to know more about your fellow donors? Check out our donor data & this week's donor quotes:
http://hypothes.is/docs/Hypothesis-Donor-Data-11-12-2011.pdf
http://hypothes.is/docs/Donor-Quotes-Nov-12-2011.pdf

Now for the final weekend push! We have 36 hours left to raise the final $18k reach $100k. We can do it with your help. Can you:

- Double your donation: So far, 56 of our 638 donors have increased their donations. Can you join them? Remember, it’s 100% US tax-deductible & will be doubled again by Sunil Paul’s matching gift.

- Remind your friends: Have friends who are thinking about giving? Remind them why this project is important & share what it means to you. You might also share more of our donor quotes.
http://hypothes.is/docs/Donor-Quotes-Oct-2011.pdf
http://hypothes.is/docs/Donor-Quotes-Nov-2011.pdf

And remember that whatever you & your friends donate will be matched dollar-for-dollar by Sunil Paul when we hit $100k!

A few people have asked what we will do with the money we are raising – a very important question! Most of the money will be used to build a team & hire developers. While the project is open-source and non-profit, it is an enormous effort and needs a small core team to lead the effort of design, coding, community building, operations, etc. We are committed to spending your dollars wisely and will keep you updated in the months ahead as we hire team members and begin development.

I think it’s absolutely amazing that over 600 people have supported our project over the past 6 weeks, and I’m particularly touched by the many reasons why you consider this project important.

Together, we can make sure that Sunday night is a moment for celebration. Can you take a few minutes now to do what you can to help?

Thanks for your support!

Dan

p.s. One of our many great donor quotes from this week:

“You are tackling a pervasive problem that has been endemic to the internet, nearly since its inception…. Every day, it becomes easier to produce and retrieve data. In the past (read as before the internet) the cost of disseminating your information, insight and opinions was costly enough to force a review process before it became generally available to the public. As the cost of dissemination begins to approximate zero, this review process, though never perfect, has completely disappeared. The rate of production and ease of accessing even extremely high quality knowledge has become so great that even well known, peer reviewed, science journals can't keep up and it has leaked into the public as raw, unfiltered, highly valuable, but nearly lost knowledge. In its current unqualified, unreviewed state, your average knowledge consumer lacks the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. The current state of affairs needs, nay demands, the ability to qualitatively mark up information in a way that is universally accessible and that delivers expert analysis to the average end user. During the centuries of the renaissance, a single man could be an expert in nearly every field of human knowledge and as a result we changed the world. During the internet renaissance, one man will be able to tap into the expertise of nearly every field of human knowledge and there is no telling how we will reshape the world as a result. Hypothes.is is on the cutting edge of making the true internet renaissance possible and I am honored to be a part of helping that happen. Thank you for working to make the world a better place.” - Sean Carley

http://hypothes.is
http://twitter.com/#!/hypothes_is
http://www.facebook.com/myhypothesis

Friends of Hypothes.is,

It’s been a great 24 hours. We’ve had 85 new donors and 44 increased donations since last night – for a total of over $6000 – a one day record! We’re currently sitting at $75k. And we’re working hard behind the scenes to try to find a few more major ($2k+) donors to help make sure that we beat the $100k mark by Sunday night. (if you have any introductions to make for us, they are always much appreciated!)

Help us keep up the momentum! And remember that whatever you & your friends donate will be matched dollar-for-dollar by Sunil Paul when we hit $100k.

Thanks again!
Dan

p.s. You might have seen our numbers briefly spike up this afternoon – that was a typo from one of our donors who intended to donate $10, but accidentally donated $10k. We were briefly excited, but fortunately for him, he corrected his mistake!

p.p.s. If you missed any of our recent media articles (TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Forbes, KurzweilAI), they are now posted on our website – check them out: http://hypothes.is

http://twitter.com/#!/hypothes_is
http://www.facebook.com/myhypothesis

To our amazing donors,

Big news today! We’ve just received a wonderfully generous offer from Sunil Paul (San Francisco) to match everything we raise on Kickstarter!! (that means a match of at least $100k!)

Can you help us leverage this extraordinary gift? I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have a $31k gap to fill by Sunday. We’re at $69k now.

How do we get to $100k?

- Double your donation: So far, we have raised $39k from 487 individuals, plus three $10k donations. If each of you were willing to double your donation, we would surpass our goal by doing this alone! Would you consider taking this step? Remember, doubling your donation results in a quadrupling of your gift because of Sunil’s generosity.

- Find a friend who will donate: If your friend will match your donation, your gift will be doubled again.

Remember, whatever you donate will be doubled by Sunil when we meet our $100k goal.

Thanks for your support!

Dan

p.s. We’ve been inspired by the stories you’ve told us about why you support the project – if you’d like to read quotes from fellow donors, see these links:
hypothes.is/docs/Donor-Quotes-Nov-2011.pdf
hypothes.is/docs/Donor-Quotes-Nov-2011.pdf

“I'm in my late teens, so I feel like the Internet is another world I grew up in. I partly accept it for what it is. However, I think that since so many news sites are racing to tell an exciting story, true or false, and many sites are biased, some people, like me, take the articles with just a grain of salt. …. And well, when I saw the Hypothes.is mission statement, I felt inspired by it.… I just felt like I recognized a good thing when I saw it.” - Tess Williams

“I cannot say there is any specific area where I ‘feel the pain’ - I guess to briefly extend the analogy, there is no place that hurts, rather if feels like an overall infection… From what I read of hypothes.is, [it] seems to me an attempt to bring credibility to the current messy mass of data out there: to use the internet community as a filter to turn data into information, and I am definitely a supporter of this.” - Natalia

http://hypothes.is
http://twitter.com/#!/hypothes_is
http://www.facebook.com/myhypothesis 

To all our donors, 

THANK YOU for all your help so far!  The incredible outpouring of support from you, your desire to see Hypothes.is happen, and your very thoughtful responses to our questions have been a powerful signal that we're on the right track.  (By the way, we'll be sharing these responses with you shortly.)

We set an ambitious Kickstarter target to fund our ambitious project. This week you've taken us past $30k, to within a hair of $40k!  (We may still get there tonight!).  

Importantly, we were written up this week, with some really flattering articles.  We expected nothing like this!

• First, in ReadWriteWeb, by Marshall Kirkpatrick. (RWW is one of the largest tech blogs.)  The RWW piece includes a recent embed of a ppt on Hypothes.is
  
• Then, in Forbes! (by Haydn Shaughnessy)
  
• And a great piece in SkepTools, by Tim Farley.

This press has been tremendously helpful in getting the word out-- and connecting us with key opportunities that we wouldn't have known about otherwise, including potential grant opportunities.  If you know other journalists, bloggers, etc that might be interested in covering Hypothes.is, please contact them (and us)!

New advisors.  This week, we added three new advisors:  Mark Surman, Exec Director of the Mozilla Foundation; Salim Ismail, the founding Exec Director of Singularity University; and Drummond Reed, one of the most respected people in identity, and founder of connect.me.  

Would you be willing to help us a bit more?  These simple things can make all the difference:

• Help find two more folks that can give what you did.  Or even just one!
• Share your passion for this project directly with people you think will understand what we're trying to do.  
• Mention us and follow us in facebook and through twitter.  These easily represent half the traffic to our site.  It matters!
• Reserve your username at the Hypothes.is website, and let people know.
• Blog about us, or tell others who can!

We have a big week planned, and we'll update you again soon.

We appreciate your continued support!

Dan