{"266771":{"#nid":"266771","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Reveal Phrases that Pay on Kickstarter","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech studying the burgeoning phenomenon of crowdfunding have learned that the language used in online fundraising hold surprisingly predictive power about the success of such campaigns.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs part of their study of more than 45,000 projects on Kickstarter, Assistant Professor Eric Gilbert and doctoral candidate Tanushree Mitra reveal dozens of phrases that pay and a few dozen more that may signal the likely failure of a crowd-sourced effort.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur research revealed that the phrases used in successful Kickstarter campaigns exhibited general persuasion principles,\u201d said Gilbert, who runs the Comp. Social Lab at Georgia Tech. \u201cFor example, those campaigns that follow the concept of reciprocity \u2013 that is, offer a gift in return for a pledge \u2013 and the perceptions of social participation and authority, generated the greatest amount of funding.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile offering donors a gift may improve a campaign\u2019s success, the study found the language project creators used to express the reward made the difference. For example, the phrases \u201calso receive two,\u201d \u201chas pledged\u201d and \u201cproject will be\u201d strongly foretell that a project will reach funding status, while phrases such as \u201cdressed up,\u201d \u201cnot been able\u201d and \u201ctrusting\u201d are attached to unfunded projects.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers examined the success of Pebble, which is the most successful Kickstarter campaign to date with more than $10 million in pledges, and compared it to Ninja Baseball, a well-publicized PC game that only earned a third of its $10,000 goal.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe discrepancy in funding success between projects like Pebble and Ninja Baseball prompted us to consider why some projects meet funding goals and others do not,\u201d Mitra said. \u201cWe found that the driving factors in crowdfunding ranged from social participation to encouragement to gifts \u2013 all of which are distinguished by the language used in the project description.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor their research, Gilbert and Mitra assembled a list of all Kickstarter projects launched as of June 2, 2012, and had reached their last date of fund collection. Of the more than 45,000 projects, 51.53 percent were successfully funded while 48.47 percent were not.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter controlling for variables such as funding goals, video, social media connections, categories and pledge levels, the researchers focused on more than 20,000 phrases before compiling a dictionary of more than 100 phrases with predictive powers of success or failure.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research suggested that the language used by creators to pitch their project plays a major role in driving the project\u2019s success, accounting for 58.56 percent of the variance around success. The language generally fit into the following categories:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EReciprocity\u003C\/strong\u003E or the tendency to return a favor after receiving one as evidenced by phrases such as \u201calso receive two,\u201d \u201cpledged will\u201d and \u201cgood karma and\u003Cstrong\u003E.\u201d\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EScarcity \u003C\/strong\u003Eor attachment to something rare as shown with \u201coption is\u201d and \u201cgiven the chance.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESocial Proof\u003C\/strong\u003E, which suggests that people depend on others for social cues on how to act as shown by the phrase \u201chas pledged.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESocial Identity\u003C\/strong\u003E or the feeling of belonging to a specific social group. Phrases such as \u201cto build this\u201d and \u201caccessible to the\u201d fit this category.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELiking\u003C\/strong\u003E, which reflects the fact that people comply with people or products that appeal to them.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAuthority\u003C\/strong\u003E, where people resort to expert opinions for making efficient and quick decisions as shown by phrases such as \u201cwe can afford\u201d and \u201cproject will be.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team\u2019s findings are summarized in the paper \u201cThe Language that Gets People to Give: Phrases that Predict Success on Kickstarter.\u201d The \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/comp.social.gatech.edu\/papers\/cscw14.crowdfunding.mitra.pdf\u0022\u003Epaper\u003C\/a\u003E will be formally presented at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/confer.csail.mit.edu\/cscw2014\/paper#cscw339\u0022\u003E17\u003Csup\u003Eth\u003C\/sup\u003E ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2014)\u003C\/a\u003E to be held in Baltimore, Md., from Feb. 15 to 19.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech studying the burgeoning phenomenon of crowdfunding have learned that the language used in online fundraising hold surprisingly predictive power about the success of such campaigns.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New study finds that pitch language plays major role in success of projects on popular crowdfunding site"}],"uid":"27897","created_gmt":"2014-01-14 09:40:16","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:40","author":"Phillip Taylor","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-01-14T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-01-14T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"266791":{"id":"266791","type":"image","title":"Kickstarter Phrases that Pay (and Don\u0027t)","body":null,"created":"1449244058","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:47:38","changed":"1475894956","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:16","alt":"Kickstarter Phrases that Pay (and Don\u0027t)","file":{"fid":"198541","name":"kickstarter-graphic.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/kickstarter-graphic_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/kickstarter-graphic_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":432787,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/kickstarter-graphic_0.jpg?itok=bq4Z601L"}}},"media_ids":["266791"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"38391","name":"kickstarter"},{"id":"114601","name":"Press Release"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPhillip Taylor\u003Cbr \/\u003ECollege of Computing at Georgia Tech\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u003Cbr \/\u003E404.894.7253\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}