Jeremy Williams, Copywriter

“Some of the best kickstarter campaigns of all time don't just reach fame (and fortune) on a good picture and a few well-placed words. The Press Release is where the biggest chunk of media attention, and thus fame, comes from.

Press Releases are short, simple descriptions that the media use to relay information to their viewers. Well written press releases contain only pertinate data and, in the case of products, usage imagery and examples, allowing the media an easy way to disseminate information quickly.

To show just how valuable a press release is, let's take a look at a few kickstarter campaigns (and their respective press releases) that managed to generate impressive funding numbers.

1. The Micro

Described as the first truly consumer-based 3d printer, the Micro managed to raise 3.4 million dollars during it's kickstarter campaign. The press release for the campaign started off by appealing to both everyday users and hardcore 3d enthusiasts by included examples such as "custom toys, jewellery, and chocolate molds". These impressive examples, which were included in the press release, simultaneously appealed to a very large number of potential users, which garnered it the impressive funding amount it ended with.

2. The Dash

The Dash is an oddly named, but very well performing kickstarter campaign for a pair of wireless in-ear headphones. It raised over 3.3 million dollars during the campaign, smashing its initial goal of just 260 dollars in less than 2 days. The press release for the Dash contained stimulating language like "beautiful marriage of ...", which lead to such a massive funding success.

3. The G-RO

The G-RO is described as a "unique companion bag" designed to meet the needs of any and all people who travel frequently. It reached its kickstarter goal of 125,000 in 6 hours and raised a grand total of just over 3.3 million dollars during its campaign time. The press release for the G-RO detailed the new design choices for the G-RO over other luggage and used real world examples to describe the functionality of the bag. Without these examples, it's highly likely that the new design choices, which were radically different from previous luggages, might have been ignored. So including them in the press release was a wise decision.

4. The Pebble Time

The Pebble Time is a smartwatch, a wearable mini-computer that does much more than tell the time. With a month long campaign ending in over 20 million dollars raised, the Pebble may be one of the most funded kickstarters of all time. Pebble began as a crowdfunded company several years before the Pebble Time was introduced and used this previous success to great effect. They began their press release with a reminder of their previous crowdfunding success before going into a description of the newest technology they developed for their brand. The Pebble Time press release most certainly qualifies as one of the Best Kickstarter Press Releases ever, which is proven by its rousing success.

5. The Coolest Cooler

The Coolest Cooler is, as its name would suggest, a cooler. Although it contains other gadgets that users in the modern world would find helpful. According to its press release, it contains useful gadgets like a blender and essential cooler necessities such as a bungee cord and ceramic knife. It's basically a cooler, with all the extras you never really knew you needed. Perhaps with additional thanks to its extra features, it raised over 13 million during its kickstarter campaign, making it the most funded kickstarter in the year it was introduced to kickstarter, 2014. Its success also dictates that it qualify for one of the Best Kickstarter Press Releases of all time, because without a press release it would have fallen by the wayside swiftly.

6. The Worlds Best Travel Jacket

Perhaps the most interesting campaign on this list is The Worlds Best Travel Jacket. It's said to have 15 features including a drink pocket for on the go drinkers, an ipad pocket for on the go ipadders, handwarming pockets for those cold winter days, a neck pillow and eye mask for those who like to sleep on the bus, and much more. Apparently its features, detailed in the press release, earned it enough support to reach a surprising 9.1 million dollars during its campaign time.

7. The Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is probably one of the most well known devices that received its funding on kickstarter. Boasting a lofty goal of being the worlds first real virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift set an initial goal of 250,000 dollars, and then blew right past it to a grand total of 2.4 million dollars. The press release for the Rift claimed that it would be the first system to truly let gamers step into their games rather than just playing them. This press release is unique in that it included more quotes from developers and less technical data. This uniqueness certainly didn't hinder the campaign though, leading the Rift into success both as a kickstarter campaign and real world product.

8. Dark Souls, the Board Game

The original hellacious game Dark Souls has decided to make a return, this time as a board game. Described as the "hardest board game you have ever played" (fans of the series will realize almost immediately how much of an understatement this is), Dark Souls – The Board Game reached an astonishing 3.7 million British Pounds (about 5.4 million US Dollars) during its campaign. This level of crowdfunding is a real feat considering just how much the Dark Souls game series loves to make its players suffer. If this press release doesn't qualify as a contender for one of the Best Kickstarter Press Releases of all time, then none of them do.

9. The Everyday Messenger

A Messenger bag designed with the aid of, and for, professional photographers, the Everday Messenger set a lofty goal of redesigning every element of previous messenger bags. Professional Photographer Trey Ratcliff started the whole campaign with a simple complaint about how his camera bags were rather terrible and a wish that he could have a messenger bag that doubled as a camera bag. It apparently worked, to the tune of 4.8 million dollars pledged during the campaign. The press release was even nice enough to include Trey's original complaint in full, which resounded with other professional photographers, causing a massive funding success which is surprisingly rare on kickstarter.

10. Torment: Tides of Numenera

Another project from the video game category, the CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game) Torment: Tides of Numenera managed to raise an impressive 4.1 million dollars, putting it in the top 5 video game kickstarters. It's described in the press release as a "thematic successor to Planescape: Torment" and is said to have been created by a team made of mostly the creators of Planescape, which certainly appealed to fans of the Planescape game. It's currently available for Early Access on the popular gaming platform Steam.

11. The Kokoon Headphones

The press release for the kokoon headphones is certainly interesting in its own right. It claims that the kokoon headphones use "medical-grade EEG technology to actively help users achieve better sleep." The kokoon includes hidden EEG sensors to help determine the patterns of the wearers sleep cycle, allowing them to automatically adjust the audio levels as necessary to ensure the user stays asleep, as well as help determine the most opportune moment to awaken the user, which can prevent a groggy, sleepy-eyed start to the day. Kokoon partnered with Onkyo and Pioneer Corporation to build the audio for the headphones, creating a high quality audio headset that includes active noise cancellation in its specifications. The successful 1.9 million dollar campaign just proves that people everywhere are tired of noisy buses and would like a little bit of peace and quiet on their way to work.

12. The OLO smartphone 3d printer

The OLO rounds out this particular list with an intriguing press release. It starts out with the following situation: "Imagine being able to print 3D objects directly from your smartphone …for just $99. That’s the reality of OLO!". That certainly sounds impressive. And the rest of the press release doesn't fail to deliver either. The OLO is described as having won the World Markers Faire Editor's Choice Award in 2015. The printer can produce 3d objects with a resolution of 42 microns, or 0.00003937 inches, which is very tiny indeed. The OLO managed to earn 2.3 million dollars in its campaign, thanks to smartphone users everywhere (and a good press release).

Lucent Space Solutions was founded in 1991 by the Brooks siblings, Amanda and William. Their goal for the company was to be the premier space manufacturing company.

Since then, Lucent has grown to incorporate almost ever facet of astronautical engineering, including (but not limited to):

Space-rated Photovoltaic Cells

Space-rated Energy Storage

Gyroscopic control mechanisms

Space-rated Environmental Suits

Radiation hardened computing devices

Radiation hardened cables

The Brooks siblings have a combined 75 years of experience in astronautical engineering and they are joined by a team of over 200 other engineers in various disciplines worldwide. The level of experience employed by Lucent is unparalled anywhere else in the world and every day more engineers are being added to the pool, ensuring that the future of both Lucent and astronautical engineering remain in safe hands.

Lucent currently has facilities in the United States, Canada, France, Japan, China, Great Britain, India, and Australia and 3 more facilities are expected to come online in South America by the year 2025.

In 1995 and 2007, Lucent acquired Marvel Space Terminals and Origin Space Colonies, expanding its engineering capabilities to include space launch systems and space station manufacturing.

As of the year 2012, Lucent has reported an annual average gross revenue of over 100 Billion US dollars.

It is the preferred company for manufacture of Space-rated Photovoltaics, with an annual average manufacturing capability of over 1 Gigawatt. Lucent also has an average annual production capacity for Space-rated Energy Storage that has remained unchallenged since 2003.

If you are interested, you can contact Lucent at the following URL: LSS.org/contact

Have you seen your friend walking around with that beautiful new necklace? You know, the one that fits her skin tone so well.

Have you been wanting one just like it?

Well you don't have to look any further. Your friend was probably wearing an Ocean Gift necklace just like this one.

This Ocean Gift piece is entirely unique, featuring a beautiful sapphire cut to the shape of the Ocean Gift logo and placed inside a silver socket that was perfectly designed just for it.

The sapphire has a deep blue colour that immediately draws your eyes to its center and keeps them there, while the silver socket provides a lovely accent that's soft and pleasing.

This necklace would normally cost thousands of dollars. But if you buy it from Ocean Gift via our official website (OceanGift.com) you can purchase this brand new necklace for only $99.99

Each necklace is handcrafted by master artisans and all of our gems are cut from the finest stock of sapphire. The silver is molded onsite inside the artisans workshop and the final piece is polished to a mirror shine that you can admire for years to come.

Each piece also comes with a free lifetime polishing service. Any minor dings from daily use can be quickly cleaned up at your local Ocean Gift store for free.

And if you need a replacement, all replacements are half off. Simply bring your Ocean Gift official jewelry certificate (free with every piece of Ocean Gift) to your local Ocean Gift store and they'll craft a replacement piece within 3 weeks.

Do you worry about your childrens safety when they're running around and playing? Do you worry they might trip on a loose shoelace or a damaged sole?

You're not alone. Research has suggested that of all children injured due to loss of footing accidents (such as tripping), 13% of the injuries are due to the type of shoe worn.

But you might not have to worry about that any longer. Speedster Shoes, one of the top footwear companies in the world, has just announced their newest kids footwear line, called Speedster Kids.

This new kids shoe features a custom designed shoelace complete with a velcro strap to hold the lace in place after it's tied. This velco strap keeps the lace bound tightly so it won't come lose during even the most demanding activity. You won't have to worry that a lose shoelace might send your kid flying into the nearest bush ever again.

The Speedster Kids shoe also features durable construction in the form of a layered sole. The layers disperse the energy of your kids activity to prevent the sole from being pulled or shredded. And if it does take any cuts or hard tugs, the sole will peel and can be easily put back together at a local shoe shoe repair shop, ensuring a long life. And a long shoe life means more fun for your kids, and less worry for you.

And the layered sole also comes with a patented rough grip design, to keep up with the most demanding movements kids make when playing outside without slipping and sliding. Which means no more accidents due to an unseen sand pit.

And the best part is, it's affordable. The shoe is manufactured by the Speedster Shoe company and sold directly from their website. This means no more middle man, which means a lower price for you.

So if you ever worry about your little ones safety and comfort, go check out the Speedster Kids shoe at www.speedsterkids.com. You might be surprised by the value of the shoe. And if you hurry, there might even be a pre-order discount involved (just use discount code 'speedsterpressrelease').

Speedster Shoe company has been in business since the 90s. The company was founded on the principal of creating durable athletic shoes for all ages and all athletic fields. Since then, they've been one of the top shoe companies among athletes, including Olympic Games competitors. Their shoes are durable and comfortable, ensuring top notch performance by any athlete in any competition.

Are you and your fellow board members looking for a great place to host a business trip?

We have just the place for you.

Come visit the Caribbean Business Hotel and check out our luxurious accomodations.

We have 7 separate conference rooms, all of which are fully prepared for any size business meeting. And our staff will cater your business food and drinks.

Our rooms have all the luxury of a full sized penthouse suite in half the size, meaning you'll never feel cramped or crowded for the duration of the trip. So take a well deserved break after sealing that million dollar deal for your company and relax in our king sized beds for the night.

And the best part of this is: it won't cost you the million dollars that you just made. The rooms are just as affordable as those in that shady motel you stayed in for last summers business trip.

So take your business to the lap of luxury and come for a business related stay with us. We promise not to tell anyone that you took a few minutes in our indoor hot tubs if you do.

Visit us at CBHotel.com to reserve your rooms today! Or, if you prefer, you can call us at 1-800-BUSINES

Valve released a statement today announcing 4 new games for it's 2 most popular series, Half Life and Portal. The announcement came as a massive surprise to fans of both series, who have been waiting years for this announcement.

Valve announced the 4 new games will be titled Half Life 2 remix, Half Life 2.1, Portal 2 remix, and Portal 2.2.

When pressed for a statement, the Valve PR department sent media outlets the following copy:

"Fans of Half Life and Portal have been eagerly awaiting the next games in the sereis. In particular, they've been awaiting an announcement for Half Life 3. When we continued to see interest in Half Life 3, we decided we needed to release a new game.

But our devs didn't want to do just one new game. So we gave them 4 titles to work on. They've been tirelessly working to finish these new projects. Our in house titles for these projects were initially Half Life 3 and 4, Portal 3, and Portal 3.5.

This left our dev teams ecstatic and they finished much faster than we anticipated. They were far more joyous when the senior staff revealed that the release titles would be Half Life 2 remix, Half Life 2.1, Portal 2 remix, and Portal 2.2.

We received a mountain of notes from our dev team with messages such as 'We're going to make you pay', which just shows how happy our team really is.

We're glad for this opportunity to deliver our fans the games they've been asking for, and we sincerely hope that these fans enjoy our hard work."

In a statement released by twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the company announced its latest innovation: a mechanical flying bird that will deliver hard copies of popular tweets to users for a small fee.

The CEO said that this latest innovation is the next step in bringing the world together.

"We've been hearing a lot of complaints from people who don't use our platform, saying that Twitter is ruining social interaction. We here at Twitter had always assumed we were furthering this interaction, so the message came as a quite a shock." Jack Dorsey said in his statement on Monday.

"When we asked why these people thought we were ruining social interaction, they responded by saying that our platform wasn't, in their own words, 'real' or 'tangible'.

So we developed a plan to make a tangible form of Twitter for those people. It took many years, but we eventually solved the problem.

Our solution is to have a flying mechanical bird deliver hard copies of popular tweets to users who pay a small fee. Each month, a hard copy book consisting of the top 20 thousand tweets will be delivered to the doorstep of users who are signed up for this service."

When pressed for comments, the Twitter CEO stated that the cost of the service would be "smaller than a commercial airplane, but more expensive than a book"

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 21 years, you've probably heard of Virtual Reality technology. It's been dreamed of for even longer, but one of the first and, in my opinion, most memorable is the failure that was Nintendo's Virtual Boy.

Since then, the technology has floundered around, with no real breakthroughs for many years. But recently, 3 new technologies have made big waves in the field.

The first, and probably most well known, is the Oculus Rift. Oculus VR, the creator of the Rift, is backed by Facebook. This significant financial backing has really helped it grow from the early prototypes and it's anticipated release on the 28th of March 2016 has consumers buzzing and video game develops preparing for its potential success.

The Oculus Rift boasts a 1080p OLED display with a 90 Hz refresh rate. This translates to a resolution of 1080x1200 per eye for a 110 degree field of view.

However, the Oculus Rift likely won't be available to most consumers. The founder of Oculus VR announced, to everyones shock, that the headset won't be compatible with Apple's computers or, in his own words, "crappy PCs".

This might sound shocking, but he's not entirely wrong (even if he lacks etiquette). The Oculus VR requires computers capable of rendering HD video at 90 frames per second (both to match the 90 Hz refresh rate and to minimize motion sickness). Most computers, including Apple's hardware, won't be able to match that for a long time.

That being said, Valve and HTC have promised that their VR headset, the Vive, will be supported by these "crappy" PCs and even Macs. Now there isn't too much information on this planned support, and the Vive could go the way of the Rift and end up not running on either machine.

Still, the Vive is an interesting candidate for VR. Being backed by Valve gives them a huge advantage over the Rift. Valves game devs will likely get development kits for the Vive for little or no cost to them personally, meaning they can develop new VR capable games much easier.

Valve has already released SteamVR, which is a subset of it's gaming platform Steam that's designed to house VR capable games. And there are already games, such as Elite: Dangerous, sitting in that category.

The HTC Vive headset boasts the same 1080p OLED HD displays as the Rift and they even have the same refresh rate and field of view. So there's not a whole lot of difference in that aspect. Despite this, the Vive could end up contending with the Rift for the title of worlds best VR.

However, there's a 3rd quiet candidate that could upset both the Rift and Vive in a big way. And that is the StarVR from Starbreeze.

The StarVR headset could boast an impressive upset due to its technical specifications. It boasts a massive 5.5 inch display per eye. Each display has a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels, giving the StarVR an impressive field of view of 210 degrees horizontally and 130 degrees vertically. At the time of writing this article, the framerate of the StarVR is unknown.

Now, the StarVR will come with it's own problems. First of all, rendering 2560x1440 pixels at the 90 fps minimum limit that the the Vive and Rift have is going to take a lot of processing power. A lot more than the Rift and Vive without a doubt. So there will be a very high barrier to using the StarVR headset. But the impressive field of view might well be worth the extra cost for full immersion.