Micropayments experiment
Like I said before, a big problem with micropayments is transaction costs. It costs too much to transfer money securely, and it’s too much trouble for users. So this got me thinking, what if you could make a micropayment simply by clicking an attractive button like this:
Suppose you could give me 10 cents as tip for this blog post just by clicking that button. No credit card numbers or passwords, just click and it’s done. That’s as close to zero transaction costs as you could get. Would you pay?
I’m interested to know how much people would tip if it were that easy to do. So I decided to run an experiment on my blog. For the next little while, you’ll see a set of buttons underneath each post. After reading the post, I want you to click the button corresponding to how much you’d tip me for that post. If you think it’s not worth tipping, don’t click any button.
I haven’t tried something like this before, so there might be a few bugs. I’ve tested it on the site and it works, but I’m not 100% sure if it will work for those of you reading this in an RSS reader. If you have trouble, let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
Thanks for participating in my experiment! After it’s run for a while, I’ll release the results on this blog.
Here’s your first chance to ‘tip’ me:
Update: The experiment is now finished and the results are here.
4 Comments
Hi Aaron,
I think this is an interesting experiment you’ve got going, but I worry that there is a large disconnect in people’s propensity to click a button that hypothetically gives you Xc and actually giving you that money. In other words, there’s a difference b/w saying “sure, I’d give him 10c for this post” and actually doing it.
As much as I love the idea of micropayments, I suspect that this type of “experiment” won’t really yield a generalizable result. That said, you can have 10 of my cents!
-AP
AnonyProf, you’re probably right, I reckon my estimates will be biased upwards. However, is a biased estimate worse than no estimate? I tend to think not, if we recognise the bias even if we can’t estimate how big it is.
With all of the social networking apps that allow people to share links, news articles, etc. This would actually be a pretty interesting idea for a start-up. (You might want to get a patent on the idea although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone already has.) Digg, del.icio.us and other apps are easily embedded in blog posts and are integrated with the content provider (blogger) and the reader.
It would work like this…
1. Blogger signs up with app provider and embeds app provider’s code in each post
2. Reader signs up with app provider and deposits $$ to be used for tipping
3. Reader logs into app through browser at beginning of browsing session
3. Reader visits sites and finds a post he/she likes and clicks on the embedded tip button for the amount of tip desired. Tip is automatically debited from user account and sent to content provider account.
4. Reader logs off when the browser is closed or session ends.
Obviously, this is a crude model and there would be some heavy security issues to consider when $$ dollars are at stake and not just sharing links, articles, etc., but I personally would tip more if it wasn’t such a laborious task of logging into paypal and trudging through 4 or 5 screens to submit a small tip.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see an app like this pop-up in the near future. Right now the unofficial “tip buttons” are google ads and this practice is contributing to a huge and unchallenged problem with click-fraud. As click-fraud becomes more assignable and more companies take the time to identify it bloggers will have to come up with a new means of getting those quick and easy “google ad tips”.
Matt: Thanks for the detailed comments. My idea seems to be a little late - tipjoy.com are already onto it.