AOL Wants You to Pay $3,000 So Its Writer Can Fly To Vietnam And Hunt Down The Flappy Bird Creator

AOL's TechCrunch wants to fly a reporter to Vietnam, where the game's creator Dong Nguyen lives, and find out. But AOL isn't going to be footing the bill. You are.

TechCrunch is trying out "crowdfunded journalism" in which readers pay for a writer's travel expenses.

The writer they'd like to fly to Vietnam is Kim-Mai Cutler, who was born in Hanoi. Cutler wrote about how the experiement came together on her CrowdTilt page, which is seeking $3,000 for the trip.

"Crowdtilt's CEO James Beshara reached out to me and asked if I wanted to experiment with using the Crowdtilt platform for journalism. Beshara was inspired by what one of his investors, Marc Andreessen, had suggested about the future of the field. Andreessen specifically said that crowdfunding was a "GIGANTIC" opportunity for journalism."

There's no guarantee that Cutler will find Nguyen in Vietnam. He's been quiet since yanking Flappy Bird from mobile app stores with the exception of a Forbes interview. Nguyen told the interviewer that the app wouldn't be coming back and that it was taken down because it became too "addictive."

So far, Cutler has raised nearly $1,000. Investors include some of her colleagues, a few PR people, and notable venture capitalists Jeff Jordan and Garry Tan.

Here's what the page looks like. You can click here to read more or invest in Cutler's trip.