I think the jury's still out on Diaspora. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. That's my polite and respectful way of saying yes to you here.

But it's the case in point. Diaspora raised what would otherwise have been VC or angel dollars. Kickstarter isn't the platform for that. It's a bootstrapping platform optimized for product sales.

The people who succeed on Kickstarter have a) finished or finishable products that b) can be sold via "donations" on Kickstarter. This is because the patrons/backers on Kickstarter are far more likely to fork over their $50 and receive something tangible in return than they are to donate $50 to support a dream.

I'm a big fan of the Kickstarter concept. Huge fan. But human nature dictates the limits and strengths of its use cases. Your audience on Kickstarter is consumers, not financiers. These are consumers who receive no equity or charitable tax deduction for their "donations," and who will thus "donate" primarily in exchange for privileged or early access to a cool product. Or maybe to get their names in the back of the book. Whatever. Point is, they want to buy something. Inevitably, then, it becomes a sales and marketing platform and not a venture capital platform.

It's theoretically possible that the next Apple would come out of Kickstarter, but not the next Facebook.