Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in The IndieKarma Experiment

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

pedro — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:37:04 -0000

hhalala

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Paul Montgomery — Tue, 09 May 2006 20:36:52 -0000

So work out something where if you pay, you see no ads, but if you don't pay, you see ads. Win-win.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

TDavid — Tue, 09 May 2006 20:23:58 -0000

I've always like the concept of micropayments but their history has been pretty abysmal.

I share my doubts that IndieKarma will be any better but I like the focus on independent publishers and it seems better than donation/begging strategies to me.

We're giving it a try only the post pages to see how it goes. Adsense today has earned vastly more $$$ than IndieKarma, but I think a truly fair test will require at least a week, not a day. Feel free to spend your 23 cents in visits at our site and other participating ones, Pete ;)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 19:51:25 -0000

I agree with Josh and his numbers from nowhere. :)

Seriously, micropayments won't work for text content.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Josh — Tue, 09 May 2006 19:46:58 -0000

But a $10 CPM Is worthless if it takes you a 2 week to log those 1,000 users. If in that same time you can get a $2 eCPM with Adsense on your 100,000 pages... that's a lot better. ;)

(*numbers straight from nowhere, but you get the idea)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

ivan — Tue, 09 May 2006 19:42:06 -0000

I quite like it. I think some of the above is misguided. The concept works quite well - in theory. 1c a visit is never going to be onerous. Sites I visit and don't like, I pay a penny for, I never go back. Sites I visit all the time, I am making regular contributions to. So Techcrunch and Mashable will get a few pennies a day from me. Lovely. If it costs me five dollars a day, that's fine by me. And that's 500 sites visited. Bargain, if the content is quality and the writers are getting paid.
That said, there certainly is a chicken and egg problem. And, worse for me, it broke my site for IE users, just as I announced it to a marketing list. I took some flak!

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Paul Montgomery — Tue, 09 May 2006 18:39:44 -0000

"Will enough users join the IndieKarma system to make it more profitable than the occasional click on a Google ad?"

$0.01 per visitor equals $10 CPM. No one would be getting $10 CPM from AdSense on their blog unless it's about something like mesothelioma, I'm guessing. The numbers favour indieKarma in that regard. I think it would be a worthwhile adjunct, not a replacement.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 18:19:44 -0000

David G,

I totally agree.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

David G — Tue, 09 May 2006 18:17:18 -0000

This won't be big because:
1) regardless of the cost / page, internet users now expect to get user-generated-content for free.
2) "honor systems" for micropayments to bloggers etc. are nothing new - and nothing big - granted this is a new "spin", but hardly a new idea.
3) these types of programs only reach your most passionate audience - why should they subsidize the "freeloaders"

Advertising is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better model ... not only does it have the economics to make free content viable but ... when done well, online advertising is actually content - at its worst, ads are annoying but at least they are free - the more ads that move online, the more targetted they'll become and the more useful they will be to us. The day will come when you return to a website because it knows you so well that its adverts help you to stay informed of your most important product choices.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 16:35:11 -0000

Brian,

I'll try not to spend it all at once. ;)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

brian breslin — Tue, 09 May 2006 16:33:21 -0000

how bout i sign up 100 accounts, then have a bot which cycles through my accounts visiting once every hour on each
i can get $1 free in each account
so sounds like $100 in very slowly scammed money to me :-)
p.s. you just got another penny.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 15:39:28 -0000

17 cents - and counting! :)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Josh — Tue, 09 May 2006 14:57:10 -0000

I think given the chance between "pay" and "not pay" ... most people will choose the latter. If you want to solicit donations (which indieKarma calls these), I think the old PayPal or Amazon Honor System donate buttons will have a greater effect than asking people to join a third party service that they need to keep funded and may automatically deduct money from your account for any site you visit that has the system installed (i.e., even sites you have never visited and may not like--granted, one cent is not much money, but that is still not an attractive proposition to me). And if you want to charge for content, you'll do better charging subscriptions, or charging per article (which is where micropayments would be really useful). It's a nice idea, but I'm with you Pete... I remain unconvinced.

Also, if the payout is only a few cents per day, it probably won't attract many bloggers in the long run anyway. ;)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:41:34 -0000

Andrew,

Just to clarify: a "visit" refers to a billing period - you're billed once every hour at the start of your visit. So if you come back multiple times within an hour, it counts as one visit.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Andrew Turner — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:36:00 -0000

I think micropayments are actually a great idea. Except for the web, we already pay a "reading tax" on everything: newspapers, magazines, books. We also pay a watching tax (except for network tv), a listening tax (either via ads, or buy your cd) and so on.

And micropayments shouldn't apply to just websites. Open-source software is used by individuals and companies who find value in the tool and in some cases make money. Yet in most cases the original developer(s) never see a single $0.01.

The only ways someone can monetize, and therefore begin to properly support themselves and produce great content and software is via advertising. Advertising drives up the cost of goods, makes a site fugly, and also can have a driving impact on the content itself (see also Lobbying of governments by corporations).

Anyways, Micropayments seem like a pretty decent idea - just have yet to be implemented well. The only current means of doing payments easily and universally is via PayPal, which takes a good chunk of the change for itself. And indieKarma requires 1 hour of viewing for 1 cent? Personally, I rarely spend more than 10minutes on a site, and that's for a good site. :)

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Vit Fargas — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:32:01 -0000

I don't think this will work, mainly because I don't want to pay for everything I come accross. But I can't agree with ads. It's like you are saying "My work sucks and nobody wants to pay for what I am doing. I doing nothing, I am just sucker of economy and can't donate to economy with nothing but place for ads." This is complete nonsense, just like somebody will give away free cars and make money with puting advertisments on it (because those who pay for ads do real economy!). And it's freeking me out, that someone promoting web 2.0 is saying that this whole stuff is worth of just some clicks on ads... I somehow understand that banking system, "web economy" and micropayments are currently like "no go", but web 2.0 will turn into same bubble like 1.0, simply because people are NOT encouraged to "make proper cars" and get payed for what they do, but to get payed for some ***** advertisment on their car. Ok, indieKarma may still lack something, but finally it's shift toward getting money for what bloggers do, not acting like stupid billboards.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:27:39 -0000

Brian,

It doesn't seem to have a minimum payout - just straight to Paypal.

Update: Oops, looks like I was mistaken. They *do* have a minimum payout of $5. Looks like I won't be able to withdraw my riches!

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

brian breslin — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:25:20 -0000

well you can have my penny pete. its nice of them to give you a dollar to start with. i might try this, wonder when you get paid though/

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:39:08 -0000

Looks like Kottke has an interesting take on IndieKarma.

I also spotted this one from Yaro Starak.

By the way, I've now earned $0.06!

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Easton Ellsworth — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:21:07 -0000

Thanks for blogging on indieKarma, Pete. It's a very interesting idea to say the least, but something about it doesn't appeal to me - I think mostly what you've shared above. I'm going to keep an eye on this thread and see if somebody else can articulate my uneasiness for me!

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Dev Purkayastha — Tue, 09 May 2006 11:40:21 -0000

I love the idea, but I don't think it activates if you're reading the blog via an RSS feed - is that a problem?

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

David Appleyard — Tue, 09 May 2006 11:13:21 -0000

I'm not convinced, but I think the idea is well executed. It's not too intrusive, but noticable. Again, it's an idea which utilises the sheer number of people to provide a source of income, but I'd question paying to view a site - it wouldn't be cheap if you browse websites and blogs a great deal.

Re: The IndieKarma Experiment

Pete Cashmore — Tue, 09 May 2006 11:09:24 -0000

I just realized that indieKarma doesn't capitalize the first "i". I think I'll just leave it as-is.