Editing The Pen Addict 181/transcript (section)

== Scribble Pen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So one of the most amazing topics we've ever covered on this show, nearly 200 episodes into it, is a product called the Scribble Pen. And a lot of our long-time listeners are very familiar with this product. And I wanted to be sure to bring this back up again because we've had a lot of new listeners probably since we've... It's been, I don't know, many episodes since we've talked about it. But it's the pen project that won't go away, right? You know, it fails to die. So I was on Reddit the other day, and I'm a Reddit browser. I'm not like a hardcore user. I don't, you know, like reply and upvote and do all those things. But I like to read some of the things. And one of the subreddits I subscribe to is... I'm not going to say the word so you don't have to beat me, but it's blank Kickstarters. And you can assume the word.

'''Myke Hurley:''' S blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, Y.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Blanky Kickstarters.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Where people track... You know, there's all kinds of Kickstarter drama going on. So there's this subreddit where people talk about basically crappy Kickstarters. And the Scribble Pen, a link came up in that saying the Scribble Pen relaunches with new design and new video. Is it real now? So the Scribble Pen site itself updated. And I didn't even go to the site because the very first post that's gotten the most upvotes is someone who did go to the site and looked into it and opened up their terms of service, which is a genius thing to do. And let me read to you this snippet from the terms of service that is in this post. You agree that the company has a right to limit, refuse, suspend, modify, or discontinue the provision of the services or products to any user at any time without assigning any reason to that effect. Since the payment is processed to be spent on the development and manufacture of the product immediately upon submission of the pre-order by you, Therefore, it is practically not possible for us to refund the payment you make. By submitting the pre-order, you agree that the pre-orders are final and non-refundable, even in extremely rare cases that the development fails and consequently the delivery of the product is not made. Are we clear on what's going on here?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens if you try and do some sort of crowdfunding thing that's not through Kickstarter. Like if you decide you want to back something like that, right? This is the type of stuff you're going to end up bumping into.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, by hiding this wording, Scribble is saying, we are allowed to steal your money and not provide you a product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's it in a nutshell.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Now, to play devil's advocate, as I am wont to do, especially in these types of scenarios, any type of terms of service, when you look into it, will always have this kind of stuff in it, right? Where basically the result is company can do whatever company likes, you will always lose. And this is the same for any terms of service you see, any type of serious terms of service, because they have to protect themselves. I agree. That's fair.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, go ahead.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is not a company you should trust. So, the fact that this is in there tells you you definitely shouldn't be trusting them. You shouldn't be trusting them to start with. And you see stuff like this means you can't take any kind of legal action against them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And that's definitely true about almost every terms of service out there. And I agree with you, except they add the part on this money is being used for development.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. They're being clear what they're doing here. Right. And that should tell you what you need to know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, you're giving them money and you're probably never going to see a pen. And so, that's where we're currently at with the Scribble. Well, this is like round four. They failed on Kickstarter, failed on Indiegogo, failed on their own launch, and now they're trying to relaunch again. For everyone who is not familiar with Scribble, and you're just coming into this podcast now, we're going to have some links into the show notes. Because this is like 1% of the story.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, the backstory of the Scribble itself is long and dirty and awful. And there's a real, basically, just a scammer running this Kickstarter. Um, we have someone not related to the Pen Addict show at all, has gone and put together, did this massive amount of research about the guy behind the Scribble, and all the shady products that he's tried to launch, and all these scams he's tried to pull. Um, so there's a few articles we'll have in the show notes for your reading. Um, pleasure, I guess. I don't know if it's a real pleasure, uh, to read this stuff. But, it's awful. I mean, the guy behind this, you know, I'm going to say, allegedly, right? I mean, you know, it, who knows? But, there is so much evidence on the background of who's putting this project together, that, you know, I would not recommend anybody to spend a dime on the Scribble. I mean, aside from the fact that it's just complete vaporware, this product cannot actually function the way they want it to function. Um, the person behind it is, is awfully shady, and so consider...

'''Myke Hurley:''' The person who is believed to be behind it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Considered a warning. Believed to be behind it, yes. I don't want to say anything that'll get us in trouble. But, the person believed to be behind it is involved in several other similar type, um, failures across different crowdfunding platforms. And, we'll have all that documentation in the, uh, in the show notes for you to check out. I don't want to get too deep into it, because that's just a, a hideous rabbit hole. Um, to go down.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But, if there's anybody that does just want a very quick audio backstory, this is a product that is believed, or that the selling point is, you can, like, touch the end of the pen against any surface, press a button, and it will scan the colour of that surface, and allow you to write and draw in that exact colour. And, apparently, it has, like, this magical ink well cartridge thing in it, that can mix the colours on the fly, and allow you to draw in it. And, there's a ink version, and there is a stylus version, so you can do it digitally instead. Um, which is potentially more real, if one of them was going to be real. Sure. Um, that, that product makes way more sense to actually exist via the laws of physics. Yes. Um, and they were on Kickstarter, and they had a very successful Kickstarter campaign.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, a couple hundred thousand, right? At least.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But the, uh, partly, I believe, I believe, and to this day believe, partly due to this show, uh, we, we really started talking about it a lot, and, and, and I think were, not completely, but, but part of the reason that lots of people started talking about it, and looking into it, and asking lots of questions. Um, the, uh, the video that they showed, that, that, that the Scribble people made, didn't actually really show the pen in action. Um, yeah. So Kickstarter basically said to them, give us a video of this thing in action, and your project comes down. They made a video, which, again, didn't really show anything, and was super badly edited, which would suggest that there was something, a little bit under the wall going on, and then Kickstarter shut them down. Then they went to...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Indiegogo.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Did they go to Indiegogo, or did they go to that self-hosted thing?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think they did Indiegogo for, like, a week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and I think Indiegogo shut them down. Yeah. Which is very rare. Like, if Indiegogo's shutting you down, like, because they...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because you get paid, you get the money immediately from Indiegogo. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, then Indiegogo shut them down, then they did this, like, self-hosted crowdfunding thing, and it didn't really go anywhere, and now they're back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then they did a prototype mail list, like a pre-order prototype, you want to get on the beta team, or kind of thing. Yep. Just trying to get money from people. You know, pay us basically full freight for the prototype of this, which, you know, they sent out emails to people who had signed up for Kickstarter. You know, they have all their email addresses and things like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And then now we're back again. So, it's a nightmare.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But have you watched the video?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The new one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, you've really missed out, man. Oh, it's amazing. Right. So, the new version, the new version, okay, it can do a bunch of things that the old version can't do. Oh, Lord. So, for example, they show one part where, like, there's a couple in a room, and they, like, it's an empty room, and they're getting ready to decorate it. And they have some colors in the room, and they scan the colors. And it shows them, like, a catalog of furniture that matches those colors, right? So, it does that, for one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It does, you can kind of search for colors now in, like, a kind of a weird way. Like, you search for the color, and then it does, like, what would look like a Google image search and shows you things that are in that color. So, let's say, like, you search a red, like, oh, this vase is in that red. It does, you can scan colors of the clothing in your wardrobe and use the app that they make to create, like, a virtual wardrobe thing. So, you can plan your outfits. And also, you can scan the colors of your skin, and it will make makeup recommendations for you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, you totally need this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's everything I need in life.

'''Myke Hurley:''' As well as, you know, being the best pen. The only pen you'll ever need, I think, is the, or the last pen you'll ever need, is the thing that they say. Because, obviously, it can match to any color in the world.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, what a mess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. The video is really, really nicely produced now, though. And the product design, the prototype design, looks way better.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. I mean, it's always looked good. It's just never going to work. Yeah. Well, I'll watch the video tonight. I was avoiding it. You've got to watch it, man.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's kind of a marvel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's amazing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But with this video, they still would have run into the same problems. Because the way that they show the product working, they actually show what looks like the product working. But, basically, you could very easily make it look this way of editing. So, they still would have run into the same problems.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure, sure. So, just to put a bow on it, the reason why we don't believe this scribble will work, because, like Myke was saying, you point at the object to get the color, and the ink mixes, right? That's great. But now, the theory is, you can point to the next color, and it mixes, and then it writes in that color, and that's not physically possible. There's no way that transition can happen. And that's been the hang-up. A lot of people have tried, and I think there are some products where you can do this digitally, with the stylus, point at the color, and have an app on a tablet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And that's part of their product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, that's part of the product. But the actual marker is just, I don't see any way that it can physically happen. So, there's the scribble story, and there'll be more reading in the show notes, if you are so inclined, especially for new listeners to the show. You should check it out, just because it's just one of the most asinine things we've ever dealt with here on the show. I think it's even crazier than the Visionaire. The Visionaire was just bad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Visionaire wasn't a scam.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. The Visionaire was... What would you call the Visionaire?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' An obfuscation?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, or it was just like a product of extremely high markup.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. It was a flea market resale.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. The problem with the Visionaire was that they were not being forthcoming with details. Right. Right, about where the product was made and manufactured. Right. But this is... I mean, we don't know it's a scam. Like, we don't know. Like, we really don't know. Like, we can only assume. They might believe they can make this. Sure. They might not be setting out to scam people. But this is more likely a scam than anything else that we've seen before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah. The way... The lineage of the product. Yeah. It's pretty sketchy. Stay far away.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just in case we don't pick it, but Greg82 in the chat room has suggested maybe one of the best titles in Pen Island history. The problem with the Visionaire was... Dot, dot, dot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' How many hours do we have left to record?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was going through some stuff today in my kind of my big box where I throw like random pen related things. And I found the ink cartridges in the Visionaire box. I threw them away. I decided not to keep them for my birth certificate of my child.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, right. Remember the time I was texting him live on the show? Oh, yeah. I remember that. Because I actually had an open dialogue with him in the beginning and then he realized it was not going to go well for him and he stopped replying to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' At first I thought he was... He thought it was awesome that he could potentially be getting this press and then realized where it was going and decided to pull away, which is probably the smartest move that he made throughout his whole campaign. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.