Tipjoy: Rethinking Micropayments

http://www.sexywidget.com/my_weblog/2008/05/tipjoy-rethinki.html

by sopu • 18 years ago

23 12 18 years ago

truebosko• 18 years ago

tipjoy is pretty neat. I have it on one of my smaller blogs that I own and it's got me a few payments. Biggest problem is the fact that someone tips the minimum 10 cents but 90% of people do not actually follow through. Of course, it's just in its early stages so good job so far

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

About 30% of pledged tips have been paid - but these numbers are really early. We haven't prodded tippers too much yet, but we're about to start subtly pushing them towards payment.

axod• 18 years ago

Interesting. Then I got to the line "RateItAll, is the only consumer review site that shares revenue with its contributors"

What about the other million consumer review sites? Get paid for your opinions?

TipJoy could be pretty big though. Tough problem to solve, but fun :)

stcredzero2• 18 years ago

Scott McCloud started a micropayments furor awhile back.

http://www.scottmccloud.com/home/essays/2003-09-micros/micro...

I think it's time for micropayments. Web advertising is not turning out to be some all-wonderful thing. Rather, it seems to reach the less affluent web populace. If people can directly reward good content, we will eventually see more content people will like.

maxklein2• 18 years ago

How many times will this be tried and continue to fail!? This "tipping" thing has been done since eternity - it's called begging, and the people who do it are regarded as pretty low on the social ladder.

I read a great article, and I do NOT want to tip. I maybe want to read more about the person, or buy a book or something, but just randomly giving money is not financially clever.

If I tip in a restaurant, it's because I want to be remembered. If I anonymously tip some blogger, what do I get? Nothing!

TipJoy is an unnatural phenomena, and it's an uphill battle type of business. I will never tip a blogger. I will buy from him maybe, but never ever tip him.

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

It's really all about how you describe the service. Tipjoy is all about dead-simple voluntary patronage of digital content. Patronage is a millennia old model for creative content generation.

Also, tipping isn't anonymous. Here is a list of things I've tipped. http://tipjoy.com/userstream/ivankirigin/

We're going to push this information as far as we can because the social side is so important.

te_platt• 18 years ago

"If I anonymously tip some blogger, what do I get? Nothing!"

What about getting more of the kind of content that you enjoyed?

stcredzero2• 18 years ago

It should be possible to implement "freemium" content using something like TipJoy. All you need is infrastructure that will remember a setting for you where you can set (even smaller) micropayments to be automatic for visits to certain sites. Then the content owners can read your preference and turn on other content. I could imagine doing this for a bunch of webcomics that I read.

thorax• 18 years ago

Do you feel the same about donating to a free software project? Donating to a cool software service? Donating to NPR?

The point is that we're not necessarily talking about "tips" in the sense of "additional personal gratuity on top of an existing purchase". Very often, in this context, it involves making a donation towards efforts of someone you appreciate as, perhaps, the sole means of funding a project.

I agree that I probably wouldn't be so keen on a service that encourages tipping people during an existing transaction. For example, I likely wouldn't tip a tech support rep for a company I host through (well, unless they went above and beyond in an overwhelming way).

But I sure as hell think it's great to be able to pay a little to those who otherwise get absolutely nothing (other than a bit of respect).

Just as I might buy lunch at work for a coworker who saved me a lot of time out of their generosity, I'd like to periodically pay back those who make my life easier out of the kindness of their hearts.

For this purpose, I think TipJoy is one of the best alternatives I've seen for online "appreciation" donations. We plan to leverage it on our sites where it makes sense.

neilc2• 18 years ago

  If I tip in a restaurant, it's because I want to be remembered.

So you never tip at a restaurant to which you're not going to return? (Suppose you're dining at a restaurant while traveling.) Besides, the chance that you're going to be "remembered" for leaving 15% (or 20%) at a typical restaurant is minuscule. The same goes for leaving $1 in the tipjar at a coffee shop.

I think you completely misunderstand the purpose of tipping. People tip because: (1) it is a social convention; they feel they are expected to, and the wages of people in service industries are structured to assume tipping occurs (2) they want to show appreciation for having a service performed. The first is not (yet) a factor for online tipjars, but the latter is still applicable.

maxklein2• 18 years ago

Me not American, so your tipping culture does not apply to me.

Tipjoy: Rethinking Micropayments

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