Press Release - Alpha test and first campaign
From Flouzo
Contents |
[edit] Internet veterans create Flouzo, a platform of alternative financing
PARIS, MONDAY SEPTEMBER 10 2007 - Flouzo wants to exploit good ideas. If – who knows – money brings money, Flouzo.fr is planning on shortening the distance between a good idea and the money needed to carry it out; shortening the distance between one, ready to give a small sum of money, and the other, motivated and sincere. This week, Flouzo is launching its alpha-test, with a first donation campaign.
[edit] A toolbox for humanist entrepreneurs
Flouzo.fr offers a list of specific projects appealing for donations; associations, charity projects or companies will be able to rely on pecuniary encouragements from individuals to finance themselves. An idea can be proposed, financial needs stated and a project submitted through a very simple form. Then, via numerous tools such as forums, wiki, mailing-lists, it comments on, improves, relays the information, and takes part in the call for donations campaign. The donor is thus involved, informed; they do not give to big black boxes, huge aid organizations disconnected from reality, they give to specific and various projects, and have their say in the matter.
[edit] Methods based on experience
The founding team is made up of alternative Internet veterans like Xavier Antoviaque, Loïc Dachary or Valentin Lacambre. The first one carried out the Ryzom.org[1]; the second one carried out the EUCD.info[2] and he is a founding member of the Free Software Foundation France; the third one is a long-standing activist entrepreneur, who is notably known for the Estelle Halliday vs Altern.org[3]. Freeists and militants, experts in online community management, they drew specific tools and practices from those personal experiences. Avoid aggressive advertising and seduction-communication, lean on a large community and offer it some visibility, a great transparency; target journalists and specific media, be attentive to projects wandering off the beaten tracks. Flouzo thus offers tools for every project on the website, and, if needs be, gives some advice and takes the donation campaign in hand.
[edit] First Campaign: Warsow
The alpha-test is a means to test out the platform by launching a few selected campaigns. Flouzo is hosting an appeal for donations initiated by a community of players, Warsow, a free FPS looking to finance its way to the ESWC 2008, an international videogames competition. To do so, the project needs to gather 35.000€; more details can be found on the campaign’s website, http://warsow.flouzo.net/.
[edit] A bombshell in the financial world
Many are the projects not fitting what investment funds and banks are looking for. To Xavier Antoviaque, “the problem here is deep: within the scope of mercantile logic, the human factor is scarcely taken into account. Financial intermediaries use financial profitability as their main decision-making criterion, concentrate decisionary powers and throw the relationship between creators and users off balance.”
By encouraging project holders to be convincing, not exclusively in terms of figures, but also in terms of interest for the users or the common good, we are hoping to help bring back the human factor into the equation. And, who knows, perhaps one day people will lend money to those who really need it.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Ryzom.org campaign whose goal was to take over the source code of the bankrupt videogame Ryzom; more than 300 000€ in donation promises were gathered. Refer to http://www.ryzom.org/page/project_presentation and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6198362.stm
- ↑ campaign. With EUCD.info, Loïc Dachary enabled the financing of judicial studies and lobbying campaigns about EUCD (European) and DADVSI (French) laws. Refer to http://eucd.info/ and http://www.01net.com/article/298226.html
- ↑ case. A user from the free hosting platform Altern.org had published Estelle Halliday’s pictures, so she took legal action against Valentin Lacambre, who was operating the platform. A lot af attention was paid to the ensuing trial and Valentin Lacambre benefited from a large community and financial support.
