The Ubuntu Edge video

Hi everyone

We’re into the last 48 hours! You’ve all been fantastic, keeping the conversation going from the initial launch rush right through to this final push.

In the last few days we’ve had the Thunderclap, which co-ordinated 1,848 tweets and Facebook posts about the Edge to go out simultaneously to your hundreds of thousands of people.

CNET UK went hands-on with the Edge and Ubuntu for Android here in the Canonical offices, coming away with a very positive impression.

And we got an unexpected boost from Ubuntu user Stephen Fry, who pledged for an Edge and urged his 6 million Twitter followers to do the same. Thanks Stephen!



There’s still time to get involved, so let’s give it one final push and see how much we can add to that amazing total.
Keep sharing!

The Ubuntu Edge team

Canonical posted an announcement 2 hours ago

Hi everyone

So ends a crazy month. We’ve broken records, we’ve been written and talked about across the world, we’ve worn out our F5 keys, and we’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons about crowdfunding. Our bold campaign to build a visionary new device ultimately fell short, but we can take away so many positives.

We raised $12,809,906, making the Edge the world’s biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign. Let’s not lose sight of what an achievement that is. Close to 20,000 people believed in our vision enough to contribute hundreds of dollars for a phone months in advance, just to help make it happen. It wasn’t just individuals, either: Bloomberg LP gave $80,000 and several smaller businesses contributed $7,000 each. Thank you all for getting behind us.

Then there’s the Ubuntu community. Many of you gave your time as well as money, organising your own mailing lists, social media strategies and online ads, and successfully reaching out to your local media. We even saw entire sites created to gather information and help promote the Edge. We’ll be contacting our biggest referrers personally.

Most importantly, the big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014. Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won’t have much longer to wait.

All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers, and we have many of the world’s biggest mobile networks already signed up to the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group. They’ll have been watching this global discussion of Ubuntu and the need for innovation very closely indeed. Watch this space!

As for crowdfunding, we believe it’s a great way to give consumers a voice and to push for more innovation and transparency in the mobile industry. And who knows, perhaps one day we’ll take everything we’ve learned from this campaign -- achievements and mistakes -- and try it all over again.

Thank you all

Mark Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu Edge team and everyone at Canonical

P.S. We’ve been assured by Paypal that all refunds will be processed within five working days.






Ssssoooooooooooooooooooooooo

Looks like you owe me $20 buddy


kaddy

Hi everyone

So ends a crazy month. We’ve broken records, we’ve been written and talked about across the world, we’ve worn out our F5 keys, and we’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons about crowdfunding. Our bold campaign to build a visionary new device ultimately fell short, but we can take away so many positives.

We raised $12,809,906, making the Edge the world’s biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign. Let’s not lose sight of what an achievement that is. Close to 20,000 people believed in our vision enough to contribute hundreds of dollars for a phone months in advance, just to help make it happen. It wasn’t just individuals, either: Bloomberg LP gave $80,000 and several smaller businesses contributed $7,000 each. Thank you all for getting behind us.

Then there’s the Ubuntu community. Many of you gave your time as well as money, organising your own mailing lists, social media strategies and online ads, and successfully reaching out to your local media. We even saw entire sites created to gather information and help promote the Edge. We’ll be contacting our biggest referrers personally.

Most importantly, the big winner from this campaign is Ubuntu. While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014. Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won’t have much longer to wait.

All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers, and we have many of the world’s biggest mobile networks already signed up to the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group. They’ll have been watching this global discussion of Ubuntu and the need for innovation very closely indeed. Watch this space!

As for crowdfunding, we believe it’s a great way to give consumers a voice and to push for more innovation and transparency in the mobile industry. And who knows, perhaps one day we’ll take everything we’ve learned from this campaign -- achievements and mistakes -- and try it all over again.

Thank you all

Mark Shuttleworth, the Ubuntu Edge team and everyone at Canonical

P.S. We’ve been assured by Paypal that all refunds will be processed within five working days.

Kaddy,

charlie.ebert@gmail.com

Send me your postal address and I'll mail you the $20 and a nice card.
It was fun right up till the end...

Your friend.

Charlie

haha It's all good Charlie, I wasn't planning on taking the $20. \
The validation alone is enough for me... I couldn't see Mark investing so much money just so that
Ubuntu enthusiasts could have an Ubuntu edge phone.... there is no return on his investment.... that would be a retarded business
decision to make....  

Oh well... there will still be Ubuntu mobiles in future, low to mid range... I'de buy one for $200

Hey, I'm not worried about the money. But, if you do send you address, when i get home from Atlanta, i will go up
and get you and your wife Route 66 T Shirts and a card and send that then. It's up to you. Route 66 is just as cool as Perth...

Well, about Shuttleworth. You say to have taken the $12k and have built the phone anyway would have been a bad decision
and he avoids bad decisions... And to that comment Sir Kaddy, i'd have to say,, "Have you watched any of your own reviews of other famous
Mark Shuttleworth decisions recently?"... ha ha...

At any rate, it did prove he had some interest from some people in Ubuntu phone.
And even though I put money into this project, I still believe that it's going to be a very hard battle to get into the Mobile market for Shuttleworth and Ubuntu.
if you've noticed, even the 2 people up on the Linux Action show who fed us a constant stream of ubuntu are now saying basically what you've said, that
Android phones are better and they'd never use a Ubuntu phone. Their even suggesting their major advertising vendor switch using Ubuntu on their machines they sell to something else. And that's even more strange...

Oh well, it's over. The only exciting thing I've gotten out of this was installing Elementary OS Luna.

bye Kaddy,

Charlie