Discover New Kickstarter Campaigns With Hype Machine’s Fundhaus

Fundhaus, the project previously known as Kickstumbler, is a service designed to help you discover Kickstarter projects. Billed as a cross between Kickstarter and Stumble Upon, Fundhaus was created by the folks who brought us The Hype Machine, a site that aggregates mp3's from music blogs and has been in the discovery game since 2005. Given the growing importance of Kickstarter as a funder of the arts, especially music and film, it's nice to see folks developing ways to bring even more attention to interesting projects in need of funding.

To some degree Fundhaus turns browsing Kickstarter into a form of entertainment. One can simply dive in and be presented with a random project and then hit the NEXT button in the upper right corner to browse to the next random project.

Once Fundhaus displays the first project, you then have the option to check out specific Categories from a drop down menu that also offers a short list of locations. Within categories you can browse Recommended projects including those that have already been funded.

You can even browse video pitches as another way to find out who's seeking your support.

The folks at Hype Machine who developed Fundhaus say they've been "obsessively browsing and funding [Kickstarter] projects" which suggests that Fundhaus grew out of the same impulse as did Hype Machine back in 2005.

While using Fundhaus, I was disappointed to find that You Are Listening to Los Angeles did not reach their iPhone app funding goal just a few hours before I found their post. Given that they've had an extensive amount of media coverage in the past, including at Hypebot, but didn't seem to get much coverage for their funding attempt, one has to wonder if they bothered to reach out beyond their current fan base.

Though Fundhaus won't ensure that any project in particular gets funded, one hopes it will help potential funders find new possibilities. On the other hand, Kickstarter has its own discovery options with projects as interesting as those I found via Fundhaus.

But, to be perfectly honest, I found browsing other categories a bit more interesting given that almost every music project was focused on recording or completing an album by musicians with I was unfamiliar plus an occasional plea to fund a touring van.

More: Kickstarter Will Fund More Projects In 2012 Than National Endowment For The Arts

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and music industry resources at Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.