Curious Kickstarter to Create Customized Second Life Keyboards

Puka Head SL™ Keyboard, as the name suggests, is a new Kickstarter to create a PC keyboard customized for Second Life, with unique hot keys to enable important SL functions. Launched by longtime SLer Bill "Sketch Landar" Pool, his proposal is very well thought out -- the keyboard is designed to work with the top third party SL viewers as well as the official Second Life viewer, and he's already contacted a keyboard manufacturer to create the physical product. He's asking for $100,000, which may seem like a lot, but he breaks down that figure like this:

After over a year of working things out and modeling all of the costs in a fancy spreadsheet I have come up with a MSRP (price to you) of $64 USD (retail price). So my goal for Kickstarter is 1400 backers (you) purchasing a pre-ordered (with delivery estimate just under 3 months) keyboard for $64 and paying on top of that at least $7 for shipping. That will generate about $89,000 for the keyboards and at least another $9800 for shipping. It works out to $99,400 so roughly speaking the end result of a successful Kickstarter campaign yields $100,000 USD.

So just 1400 dedicated SLers out of the 600,000 or so longterm users to make this happen. If you're interested, give it a look here.

Comments

[Amanda Dallin]

Wish I'd thought of this early 2007.

[dk]

I rather use my existing macro keys.

[Clara Seller]

I like this and I'd buy it as an impulse buy, but I want it right now. I wish this was available from LL. It would be a nice gesture to know that they believe in a future for the platform. I really hope this venture is successful.