The original Kickstarter campaign.

Last week, we covered Vergence Labs' canceled Kickstarter campaign and relocation to Indiegogo. Kickstarter's no-comment policy regarding suspended projects means there's no way to know the official reason for the cancellation. But now it looks like someone--though it's not entirely clear who--has embarked on a spammy promotional campaign for the Indiegogo project, blasting out emails from a "Sergey Grin" and blitzing Twitter with @replies linking to the new project.

Founders Erick Miller and Jon Rodriguez were unable to respond by publication time (despite multiple requests for comment), but it's presumably either them, or someone who is very, very enthusiastic about their idea.

Shortly after the project's cancellation, the issue popped up on Quora, and the most compelling explanation yet came from Stephen Lau, a senior software engineer involved with Google's Project Glass.

He wrote, "I suspect it was likely due to the spam (or perceived spam) sent by "Sergey 'Grin'", or perhaps the comments left on many articles/blogs covering Project Glass pointing readers to the Vergence Labs Kickstarter," which violates at least one Kickstarter community guideline. Google's project also aims to create a set of social video specs, and it's obviously far better funded.

Consultant Josh Davis then reported on his blog that he'd also received a spam email with a subject line screeching, "Holy crap! Even better than Google Glass" and directing him to "this fun crowd-funded project at IndieGoGo!" He also noted that suspiciously bot-like Twitter accounts were pumping out @ messages promoting the move to Indiegogo. We reached out to Mr. Davis, who wasn't sure why he would have received the email, other than that he contributed to a rival social glasses project.  He also pointed out that the Twitter spam slowed dramatically on Friday at 3:55PM CST, i.e. "about 15 minutes after Google Analytics showed I had 15 different unique visitors from Stanford read my piece." According to his LinkedIn profile, cofounder Jon Rodriguez is a member of Stanford's class of 2012.

Thus far, Mr. Miller and Mr. Rodriguez aren't owning up to the spam, and they haven't provided a response to our requests for comment. CEO Erick Miller did, however, respond to Mr. Lau's Quora comment, deflecting responsibility: "we are not making any public statements about [the Sergey "Grin" emails] because we're unclear what this was about, but we had a chuckle about it, and a grin -- at least we see this as an indicator that we're gaining some visibility and interest w/ what we're working on."

However, another comment from Mr. Rodriguez looks an awful lot like a confession that he's behind at least some shenanigans:

I see it as a duty to develop Singularity-causing tech as fast as possible, gain the socioeconomic clout to ensure its adoption causes people more benefits than harms, and in general a combo of faster-than-anyone-else R&D and admittedly-annoying maximally-reachful marketing. [emphasis ours]

Well, we suppose a desire to bring about the Singularity would, at least, explains the crusader zeal.

We're still waiting for a response from the Vergence team, and we'll update when/if we receive one.

The project at issue. (screencap, Kickstarter.com)

Despite all the enthusiasm for Kickstarter as savior of hardware companies, it's still worth caveats all around. Backers should remember there's still the occasional scam, failed project, and downright bad idea. And would-be money-raisers should remember that they are using someone else's platform and therefore subject to Kickstarter's oversight, like it or not. Last month, we covered the case of Tentacle Bento, a card game yanked from the site. Today it looks like another, less overtly offensive project got the ax: Vergence Labs' social video glasses.

Vergence Labs proposed to build YouGen.tv glasses, which would (supposedly; we'll believe it when we see it*) record high-def video, which users could then share socially. The project picked up some positive press at the outset, and as of earlier today, backers had pledged $63,790, exceeding the original goal of $50,000. But sometime this morning, the project was suspended and Vergence Labs' profile deleted.

It's hard to say why, exactly, Vergence was given the boot. We reached out to Kickstarter, but the company declined to comment. (Their FAQ explains that, "For legal and privacy reasons, Kickstarter does not comment on moderator actions.") But it's worth noting that the project's suspension comes after Vergence Labs offered a special BOGO deal to anyone who had pledged money to another, similar effort. Zion Eyez reached its funding goals, but a peek at the comments suggests many backers haven't been entirely pleased with their experience. It's possible Kickstarter HQ took the offer amiss.

In the meantime, it looks like the project has relocated to another crowdfunding site. Earlier today someone identifying himself as Jon Rodriguez, Vergence Labs' Chief Science Officer, wrote in the comments that "Kickstarter has not notified us of or provided any grounds for their aggressive action. Now that we know that they do stuff like this, we have migrated the project to a competing and hopefully better crowd funding platform," and providing a link to the project's new home at Indiegogo.

He added, "If you believe in us and our true ability to deliver you a fantastic, fully functional, and stylish product, thank you. We respect you and we promise to deliver you your pledge rewards if you please re-pledge on Indiegogo."

So far, they've raised $16,095.

*UPDATE: Vergence Labs CEO Erick Miller reached out (via email and in the comments) to point out that they have built a "a fully functional prototype," featured in the video at their original Kickstarter page. We're still not 100 percent sold on the concept, but fair's fair.