Hang out on the Web? Maybe you have heard of Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a system by which people can pledge money to fund creative projects and help designers get their project off the ground. Kickstarter projects really run the gamut, from film to music, from journalism to food, to beautiful industrial design. You can easily sign up (via email or Facebook), pay via credit card or Amazon checkout, and, if the project reaches a minimum funding level, it is off and running!

What does that mean for the backer? Well, it depends upon the project. Take, for example, the beautifully brilliant Jot Capacitive Touch Stylus by Adonit! The Kickstarter home for this project is here. There, you will find a video. Another video showing Day 7 status on the Kickstarter investment as well as why the clear disc on the tip is key to the design is embedded below. These videos should be very interesting to anyone with a touchscreen – Jot’s design allows for a finer line than those normally found with touchscreen styli and closer replication of the feel of pen on paper, with far better than average visual tracking. When you back the project, you get one or more Jot’s, depending on your funding level.

Being a great fan of styli, beautiful design and grassroots crowdsourcing, I, of course, backed the project. And why not? What a great use of the Web – bringing together artists and designers with small scale backers who, as a group, can bring someone’s dream to reality. Talk about a Brave New World.

I hope you consider the Jot project, or any other cool Kickstarter project. Perhaps we can all bring some dreams to reality and can say – “I remember when I wasn’t just an early adopter, I was an early backer!”