armchair quarterback :: dropcash

i've been given the honor of drawing the curtain back on andre torrez's latest project, dropcash. dropcash utilizes six apart's typekey authentication service [more on this later] and the paypal api to provide an easy to use fundraising tool.

say you wanted to get your technophile aunt an ipod for their birthday. you know for a fact that she's been eyeing the new 20gb model, but you don't have the proper funds to get it for her. sure getting the family to chip in would be great, but you'd have to coordinate amongst everyone. also, the thought of getting sucked into a conversation with your uncle morty while picking up his share of the money is less than appealing.

thanks to dropcash, what was once a hassle is now a simple 4 step process. after authenticating with typekey all you have to do is:

1. click on "create a new campaign"
2. enter all your campaign's vital information [name, description, goal, paypal address]
3. double check everything in the preview
4. profit!

that wasn't so hard, was it? after showing it to megs she deadpanned, "that looks simple... the camwhores are going to eat it up."

despite being the newest tool in the ever growing arsenal of the camwhore, it's so much more than that. you can raise funds for anything from an unexpectedly hefty bandwidth bill to a legal defense fund. the possibilities may have an end, but i can't think of one currently.

it's also worth noting that one of the slated projects for downhill battle labs is open source donation bats for public fundraising monitoring. the need exists, and as it stands dropcash is the quickest and most elegant way of doing public fundraising that i'm aware of.

if i haven't gushed enough, i have to say that tying everything into the typekey authentication system was a good call. i have far too many accounts at a myriad of places. any time i can keep things simple by having to rember one less password, i'm happy. i'd be even happier if andre's other service dropload supported this - but from what i understand his user base on that utility is too large to even consider it.

everything is brought together by a simple yet elegant layout by jason kottke that doesn't weigh down the site at all. okay, i've gone on long enough... this is a blog, not an issue of eweek.

if you need it, give it a try. if you don't, that's cool... it'll be there if you do.

[p.s. - if you'd like to throw some cash in my coffer, i'm trying to scrounge up some cash to hit both toorcon and bloggercon. yes, i know i'm a shameless whore. i understand it's perfectly alright to be one as long as one is up front about it.]