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Comment by tx | Hacker News Reader

My favorite is TipJoy. The problem was in the air, PG himself teased everybody with it, but yet nobody took the trouble of actually tackling it. Neat approach, nice execution. Bravo!

Another big one, I think, is SnapTalent. The existing system of finding people to work is pretty much an "offline approach" ported over the net. SnapTalent actually uses the technology to improve the effectiveness of the process. I only hope that their users (companies) will be smart enough to recognize the potential. If I were monster.com (are they still around?) I'd grabbed these guys immediately.

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My favorite is TipJoy

I like the basic principle of aggregating micropayments, but I think TipJoy going to be very limited until people can actually get money out (which of course means that TipJoy has to deal with the regulatory issues). So far they've accumulated $1531.54 in tips (assuming their website is up to date), which means that their 3% cut adds up to a grand total of $45.95... which isn't going to make anyone rich in a hurry.

You can't tell much from the numbers of a startup this young. They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age.

Sure -- my point was just that taking a 3% cut of $0.10 payments means that TipJoy needs to get very very big before it will be making much money.

Can TipJoy get big enough fast enough?

Tipping is just the initial form of micropayment they've implemented. Eventually they plan to support all forms. Could being able to charge people small amounts for digital content be big? Yes.

Tipping is just the initial form of micropayment they've implemented.

Well, that changes things. :-)

I know you might expect this from a cofounder, but I think Tipjoy is going to be huge.

PG is right - we'll be doing much more.

You can give far more than $0.10. That is just the default. It is really simple to give up to $10, and we might raise or remove that limit.

Also, we earn interest on money in our system. That makes the earnings closer to 6%. But we don't take a cut per tip, only on cash-out. This means that if A tips B who then tips C, each of those tips is overhead free. If C cashes out, we take a cut. The potential for a zero overhead transaction system is huge.

"... They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age ..."

But that's not a really good comparison especially if Tipjoy is dealing directly in money while google was search. Having said that, maybe Tipjoy is onto something because the last micro-payment startup to do something interesting was paypal which started 10 years ago.

That's a faulty comparison, the playing field was TOTALLY different when Google started.

When google started, no one thought you could make money from search. Pretty much everyone agrees you can make a great deal of money from micropayments if you can make them work.

I'm not saying micro payments wont work, I'm simply saying when Google started there were not NEARLY as many internet users as today, so it's definitely A LOT easier to grow a user base/become profitable online now then it was before.

Thanks!

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