[tt] Fwd: Re: [Teamcringely_eng] [Teamcringely_it] Team Cringely and the X Prize Foundation

[Bryan Bishop]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [Teamcringely_eng] [Teamcringely_it] Team Cringely and the 
X Prize Foundation
Date: Sunday 24 February 2008
From: ken chestnutt <ken at ibiblio.org>
To: 

Robert X. Cringely wrote:
> I'm sure you noticed the X Prize Foundation event last Thursday at 
> which a total of 10 teams were announced.  Since then I have received 
> many e-mails asking why Team Cringely "didn't make the cut."
> 
> It's not that we didn't make the cut, we chose not to participate in 
> this specific event.
> 
> Here's the problem.  The X Prize Foundation came to me in early 
> January asking that we participate in this event.  In one sense it 
> looked great.  Here was a prime opportunity to get publicity and 
> potentially attract sponsors.  All we had to do was finish our 
> registration and send in the $10,000 fee.
> 
> What kept us from participating wasn't the $10,000 fee, it was the 
> registration.
> 
> To participate in this event as the rules are currently set, teams 
> have to give up a great deal of control to the X Prize Foundation. 
> The Foundation controls all publicity and external communication for 
> the teams.  The Foundation has to approve in advance all sponsors. 
> The Foundation controls all media rights.  The Foundation controls 
> all merchandising and marketing rights.
> 
> This may mean nothing if you've spent your career building rockets 
> generally for a regular paycheck, but for Team Cringely it puts a 
> crimp on the way we were hoping to run our operation.  While the 
> other teams may not have a media background, I do, so I expected to 
> be able to document our effort through -- at the very least -- a 
> couple episodes of NOVA, or ideally through a reality television 
> series. NOVA would have scored us a lot of publicity as well as about 
> $500,000 for the Moon shot, while a full-scale reality series, which 
> I could pre-sell in the U.S., UK, and Australia, would have 
> brought-in our entire $5 million budget.  But in discussions with the 
> X Prize Foundation they made it clear that there would be no NOVA 
> episodes and no reality TV series that didn't include all the teams 
> in equal measure, and that any such broadcasts would be produced by 
> the X Prize Foundation and not by individual teams, and that any 
> revenue received would go to the X Prize Foundation.
> 
> The same attitude goes for action figures and t-shirts and whatever 
> else we were hoping to sell.
> 
> When it comes to vetting sponsors the X Prize Foundation is even 
> worse.  It's not that they want to keep us from being sponsored by 
> the Russian Mafia, it's that the Foundation is looking for its own 
> sponsors for the overall event (I thought it was sponsored by Google, 
> didn't you?) and doesn't want teams poaching on potential Foundation 
> sponsors.
> 
> Remember this is what these guys do for a living.  The X Prize 
> Foundation is a foundation in name only.
> 
> It is my belief that the X Prize Foundation is on a collision course 
> with Google over these issues.  The Foundation wants a very 
> professional PR operation that will make them look great and help 
> enable future contests with the X Prize Foundation at the center. 
> Google just wants lots of hits on YouTube.  the X Prize Foundation 
> will probably not score a NOVA episode and CERTAINLY won't score a 
> reality TV series because their idea of good TV is BORING TV.
> 
> Had we been in Washington this week for the X Prize event, it would 
> have meant that we'd already signed-away all those rights like the 
> other teams did.  There is plenty of time still to register and I 
> believe the terms of registration could change dramatically over 
> time, making our decision to delay look very prudent.
> 
> I've argued, in fact, that the best time to register might be when 
> our first rover is 10 feet above the lunar surface.
> 
> There are two ways to proceed from here.  One is to wait until the X 
> Prize Foundation becomes more reasonable while the other is to 
> attempt to force the X Prize Foundation to become more reasonable. 
> The way to force change is by declaring our intention to land a rover 
> on the Moon in any case, with or without the X Prize Foundation -- to 
> essentially steal the prize.  As parasites, they don't expect such a 
> bold move, nor can they allow it to happen.  If someone completes the 
> prize tasks months or years before any official team, then who will 
> pay any attention when the official teams launch?  Not many.  I 
> believe Google will push the X Prize Foundation to be more open about 
> some of these practices and we can again become part of the group. 
> If they don't, then the value of our reality TV series goes even 
> higher to where it probably exceeds that of the $20 million Google 
> prize.
> 
> Please let me know your ideas on the best way to handle this 
situation.
> 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
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Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/