Best to Come for Kickstarter, Indiegogo and the Rest

Every week, TUAW provides readers with an update on what new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects are in the news. This update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Note that we’re not covering those “projects” on Indiegogo where people are trying to get someone else to cough up money for a new computer or tablet… If a project reaches at least 80 percent of total funding and provides us with review material, we may choose to write a detailed post about it.

Holy guacamole! We’re just full of crowdfunded projects this week! Let’s get it started, first with a fascinating independent project:

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The Walking Dead in Family Version

Fox has just announced that one of its big hit series – The Walking Dead – is getting a family-friendly edited version to be broadcast earlier in the evening. Leaving aside the obvious gags about how the bowdlerised version of a bloodthirsty action drama set after a zombie-driven collapse of civilisation might make for a tidy five minutes of airtime, why?

There really is no shortage of “young adult” fiction, either on the page or on the screen, sloshing around our collective culture right now. Teen drama is omnipresent. If it didn’t start with Harry Potter, the tales of the boy wizard were at least a tipping point.

Right now, the big Tumblr-friendly fantasy drama is Divergent. It’s a sort of Brave New World knockoff that owes a substantial debt to the tone and casting of The Hunger Games. Next month some other property will come along to be distilled into animated gifs by twenty- and-thirtysomethings that ought really to know better.
 
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Putting Out Your Project Campaign

Kickstarter recently announced they’d passed $1 billion in pledges to creative projects. According to their nifty infographic, more than half was pledged in the last six months alone.

It’s great news that crowdfunding offers an alternative to bank loans or seed funding, especially for first-time entrepreneurs with a burning desire to get a product to market or even prove that a market exists. But how do you standout in the noise? Here, some of Indiegogo’s most successful campaigns share their secrets on getting noticed and not getting lost in the shuffle.

It may sound obvious, but don’t forget to use all social networks to promote your campaign. You should tweak your message slightly – what works on Facebook won’t necessarily appeal on Tumblr or Instagram.
If your campaign speaks to a certain demographic, go find them online. Stacy Rauen of Bump Water a folic acid and vitamin infused water for moms-to-be that raised almost $20k on Indiegogo says she saw great traction by advertising on parent hubs.

It’s crucial to remember your audience, she says. “Our product is for moms and moms-to-be, so our campaign had a baby centric vibe. We are both mothers, so we incorporated our children into our campaign video, she says.

Being canny about online advertising and promotion can also make the difference.

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Tunnel Filled with Zombies

After last week’s heart-rending episode, the producers of “The Walkng Dead” took things easy on the
audience with the episode “Us.” No major plot twists this week, no shocking revelations and the only recurring character death was no one we’ll mourn. Essentially, this was a breather before the season finale next week.

But that’s not to say nothing happened in this episode. In the raffle ball way the series has decided which characters we’d follow in any given episode during this current run, we got caught up with Daryl and Glenn, with a bit of Maggie, a fleeting glimpse of Bob and Sasha and a brief moment with Rick, Carl and Michonne that only served to remind us that Rick was still on the show.

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'Dead Trigger' to Bring New Zombies

The one-stop zombie-slaying shop known as Dead Trigger 2 has just gotten an update that adds a whole new game mode. If you're always running low on the in-game currency in Dead Trigger 2, maybe the Arena of Death will please you. This is a wave-based game mode where you can take out zombies and earn cash to spend in story mode. But that's not all – arena mode brings a raft of new content with it too.

Here's everything listed in the v0.5.0 changelog.

• The Arena Of Death
• Kill zombies in a variety of gruesome ways to amuse the bloodthirsty audience.
• Ejecting Traps - Build traps that kill the zombies by catapulting their rotten bodies high into the air.
• Lucky Boxes – Boosts and power up increasing Arena carnage
• Leaderboard – Get noted, compare to your friends, challenge them
• New Zombies
• New Warfare
• New Environments

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Fatal Friday for Zombies?

The hours between 9 and 11 p.m. on Wednesdays are typically quiet ones for Griffin Hall on the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus.

Evening classes have been dismissed, professors work alone in their offices and janitorial staff clean the liberal arts building’s many classrooms, halls and staircases.

But this Wednesday was a rare one for Griffin.

Late into the night, dozens of students and a lone professor raced through the halls, releasing nervous shouts as they shot toy foam dart guns to protect themselves from student zombies hidden in dark classrooms, inside forgotten pieces of hallway furniture and around any of the building’s corners.

“My favorite part is just being human and the paranoia,” said freshman student Rachel Austin. “It’s just the anticipation of ‘Am I going to get hit? Is there somebody behind me?’ It’s just amazing.”

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'Doc of the Dead' Visits SXSW

Director Alexandre O. Philippe premiered his documentary about zombies, Doc of the Dead, at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Philippe’s documentary examines the impact of zombie films on pop culture, according to Wired.

The documentary features stories about zombies in Mexico City and footage from zombie films and interviews from store owners and fans of the genre. Director George A. Romero and Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman were both interviewed for the film.

 The 81-minute film mentions zombie movies like White Zombie as well as Night of the Living Dead. Other films mentioned are 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, and The Walking Dead. Producers on the film include Robert Muratore and Kerry Deignan Roy.

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