Edit: There is a year three Kickstarter. The below holds true, so if you like good fiction & authors being paid, go back it!
Last night, about three hours before funding closed, Fireside Magazine hit its $25,000 goal that will fund the magazine for an entire year. Stephen Blackmore addressed this very topic as well, but I wanted to tackle it too.
As I wrote about last month, short fiction seems to be a healthy area of Kickstarter, and Fireside became the tenth most funded fiction project on Kickstarter. All of that is good, obviously, but it matters for reasons on a larger scale.
Readers are able to connect to authors in a whole different way than they were before, and that was a big part of Fireside succeeding- the authors were directly endorsing Fireside to potential backers. The reaction, however, is what matters- A big part of what Fireside does is make sure authors are paid well, and readers showed that they are willing to support that. Similar outlets are looking to up funding, via crowdfunding or other means, to pay pro (or better) rates.
This success puts Fireside in a great position, not just for 2013, but beyond that. A magazine featuring quality short fiction across several genres that pays well is exceptionally good for an industry that is going through an identity crisis.
A lot of things that make a large difference require the perfect combination of time, people and effort, with a dash of luck for good measure. The timing is right for Fireside and the like, and Brian is dedicated and smart enough to keep it going for a long time. It might not be at the forefront, it might not make history, but it does make a difference for what is to come for the publishing industry.
deanfortythree 
It’s like Mark Waid said in his TOC talk this year: Nobody gets rich, but everybody gets paid.