Thanks very much for this informative article. 

As a uBiome participant, I find this all very interesting. I have participated in a number of citizen science and crowdfunded projects. I chose uBiome over American Gut (both crowdfunded microbiome projects were open at the same time) specifically because I don't have much money and uBiome was significantly cheaper. Like Judy Stone, the author of the article, I have found Jess's Twitter handle jarring, although I didn't have the same problem with her TEDMED presentation. 

I will say that my experiences as a participant fall in line with the general sense of the article, that being that uBiome did not properly prepare for this venture, that the project is inadequately researched and funded, and overall ill-managed. 

In my communications from and to the uBiome folk, the experience has been by far the worst of any crowdfunded project I've contributed to, bar one. That one was a project to raise donations for a man lacking health insurance who needed emergency surgery or he would die. I've never gotten the promised "rewards", and I'm assuming that his health situation did not go as hoped. I was aware of that possibility going in. With uBiome, it's a rather different situation. As far as I know, the people behind the project haven't died, and I don't know what their excuses are for these delays. (I'm way behind on a big project right now, but I've been pretty transparent about reasons for my delays - new diagnosis, chronic illness adjustments, bronchitis, and my mother died.)

Most crowdfunded campaigns I've supported communicated regularly, some too often! Not uBiome. Official notices from them have gaps of several months between them. After their February 21 notice that funding was approved, there was no further notice until April 18th. During her TEDMED talk I complained about the lack of communication and that kits had not been made available yet. She tweeted back that they were almost ready. 

April 25th uBiome announced that kits were now available for public purchase, with participant kits to be shipped in May. May 2 they requested shipping info. May 24th they finally announced that the original participants would receive kits in June. This was the same message that included the alert that their IRB had been approved. June 13th I sent them a message expressing concern that I had filled in the survey multiple times without receiving even so much as an auto-confirmation. I didn't even know if they receive my info! 

June 16th I received an apology from them stating that I'd now receive my kit in early July. Also on June 16th they sent another Ideigogo update saying they would start shipping as soon as we filled in our personal surveys for the shipping info & tshirt size. This was, I THINK, also when the IRB portion was folded in, and some other cute stuff, like naming their 'robots'. 

July 2 they sent another update saying the kits were ready to ship, and apologizing for delays. It is now July 28, and I've still heard and seen nothing more. 

So, based on my experience, I really don't have anything good to say about uBiome at this point in time. This has been the most disappointing crowdfunding project I've every supported. 

 - Patricia