Skeptical

I’ve been and remain somewhat skeptical whether people will offer tips for content that’s free in sufficient numbers as a way of showing their appreciation to the content distributor / producer / creator.

We’ve been developing Tipit with the intent to extend the functionality into a sort of attention commerce transaction payment system where advertisers will be able to pay bloggers when readers volunteer to view an advertisement. It will work in two modes.

• Readers will have to read the ad before having access to content
• Reader will be allowed to tip the content owner/blogger by mousing over tipit and reading / viewing the ad for which the blogger will be paid.

The idea is that people would give small payments to show their appreciation. But is this sort of likee letting people come to a movie or sporting event and pay only if they feel like it?
Yes, no and not analogous.

Yes voluntary payments are like that — letting them pay if the feel like it.

No its not like a sporting event or a movie in that sports teams and film distributors have a very narrowly targeted audience at that time (seating capacity) and have to know there is a reasonable chance they will receive payment sufficient to cover the costs of creation. And judging from the empty seats at Tennessee Titans games towards the end of this season had they not gotten their cash upfront … well you get the picture.

And finally blogging has more in common with waiting tables than professional sports or filmed entertainment. Bloggers often have a near direct connection with their readers which is gained over time. I now think there is more to the notion of tips than when we started. Time will tell however.

I made my first Tipit tonight. It was this piece by Marcus Whitney on Nashvillesnews. Marcus simply points out that Flex — the very interesting development platform from Adobe/Macromedia — is free now. I didn’t know that and need to. That’s worth a buck. It took me less than 15 seconds to Tipit Marcus.

NEXT: Tipit and campaign finance. I’m not kidding. Howard Dean got far with his grass roots web based Deanspace and we’re going to take that a step further by allowing users to donate to their candidate on the spot. More next week.

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