TipJoy’s New API Lets Web Apps Share the Love (and Cash) With Their Contributors | Hacker News Reader

TipJoy’s New API Lets Web Apps Share the Love (and Cash) With Their Contributors

techcrunch.com

35 pointsnickb26 comments

At Tipit.to we haven't sent out a single payup reminder yet and we're seeing a percentage of more than 50% (more than 75% if you exclude unverified accounts).

Read more about how we are doing things differently in my comment on the post: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/27/tipjoys-new-api-lets-we...

I like the idea that instead of taking a fee, you allow the tipped to optionally tip Tipit.to. It feels right.

I wouldn't be too surprised if the tipped amount ended up being more than 3%. Any stats?

We have the default set at 10% (but people can slide it back to 0 if they want). Right now we're seeing a tip back percentage of 4.3 percent.

Nice to see this just a day or two after all the "TipJoy is dead" proclamations. There's no question that micropayments are going to be huge when someone gets it right. The only thing is, can Tipjoy actually get people to pay?

Erick is pretty down on the payment rate of 25%. But think about it this way: the content is free and no one needs to pay. That 25% do is pretty astounding actually.

As we move to other models of micropayments, this issue won't be as big.

I reckon you guys just need critical mass. Once the widget is everywhere, people won't have a problem going into credit on their TipJoy account. Once you've got that, it will be practical to use TipJoy for payment of content, etc.

25% is 2.5 times higher than the payment rate for public radio, which is just 10%.

Blogs tend to also have a smaller passive audience percentage than public radio as well. Also, I'd rather have a 10% payment rate where I'm getting significantly higher donations than a 25% rate where I'm getting 10 cents. I don't know what the average gift is but I'd guess it to be over $100.

Wait, I thought he meant 25% of however many people actually click the button to tip. That would fit with my experience.

No, I think that 25% of the pledged tips are actually paid.

Right, that's what I meant. Only a small percentage of people seem to pledge.

Congrats guys! I know we're awfully excited about this for our sites. Thanks for all your help getting setup.

Tipjoy is the Adsense of tipping. I don't care what the doubtful minds think, I see Millions down the line.

EDIT: I may be mistaking, but it appears to me that the first day Adsense rolled out, they earn 10 bucks, and they had way more followers than TipJoy. I know I am buying this stock.

I agree. Although it only has 300 sites using it so far, it's still early days. If they don't become starved of cash I reckon this will do very nicely. Good luck Tipjoy!

I think more people will tip if you tie it to e.g. no ads for those who tip a certain amount.

Why? Ad-free browsing is already free.

Ad-free browsing is not guilt-free for those who want to support the sites they use, nor aggravation-free, because a download is required, and sometimes ad-blockers inflict collateral damage.

It's guilt-free for me.

Love the tipjoy concept, but development in this direction seems to be 'slicing a thin pie even more finely'.

Also, there are issues of 'motivation crowding' to consider -- most sites/projects that rely on user contributions could hurt themselves if they made it seem that financial rewards were the main reason to contribute. Cf: Google Answers vs. Yahoo Answers, among others.

The real challenge, I suspect, is creating a cultural expectation that certain kinds of online content/service should be supported by casual tipping. That's a matter to be addressed with marketing/trendmaking/usability/ubiquity/patience, rather than complexifying the process with backend payout-sharing.

Yeah, "motivation crowding" is an interesting problem. I think the lightness of TJ helps that a bit, and for our site, it's an opt-in process so they have to be that sort of person if they want that.

I think you see more confusion in the revenue-sharing models. When you bill it as "We'll pay you for content!" then it really puts people into a mindset of $$$ which can effect how much they want to contribute in their spare time.

I think there's a good chance that won't happen in this model when you say "Hey, you can let people tip you a dime for this content if you want."

Still, I'm interested to see how well our community enjoys it.

One of the things which definitely improve online tipping is making it clear what it will be used for. Making it easier and more visible also helps.

This leads to the question if online tipping is a luxury good. Tipping in restaurants for instance is so ingrained both socially and because the staff need the money that tips may be squeezed in an economic downturn (see http://waiterrant.net/?p=436), but they will hold up. For online content, that remains to be seen, but we can definitely try.

Clay Shirky.

I love Shirky. His essay on micropayments heavily influenced the dead simple Tipjoy interface:

http://www.shirky.com/writings/fame_vs_fortune.html

...but that essay basically says micropayments are dead and will never stand a chance?

The reasons they have failed in the past are valid. We're different. It's much easier, with less thinking.

That could even be our tagline, "Tipjoy: less thinking, more love"

Well, I wish you luck :)

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