by on August 20, 2010 8 Comments

Cash for content: Introducing Flattr.com

From tip jar to tech we go today, announcing the launch of a fantastic – and, yay, European-driven – website offering a neat way for your audience to show you monetary love for your creative endeavours.

Here’s how Flattr works:

  1. Members pay a monthly stipend – upwards of €2 (it doesn’t matter where you live, since they use fancy pants payments systems – so it truly is global)
  2. Content creators display the Flattr button on their site
  3. When members discover content they love, they hit that magic Flattr button
  4. At the end of the month, that member’s payment is distributed equally among creators whose buttons have been fondled.

It doesn’t get simpler than that.

Will it take off? I sincerely hope so.

There’s a huge hitch that I believe needs to be, um, unhitched before Flattr is widely accepted.

People expect content for free.

In my experience, it’s the older audience that is more prone to donations. @leolaporte has (among other things) a flexible payments tip jar. @GSPN has a Plus membership. Libsyn and Blubrry media storage services offer sponsorship opportunities from advertisers. And predictably – by and large – it’s the advertising that steers monetisation for any ‘live’ media on the web, right now (figures bandied about suggest Laporte and TWiT are mainlining about $2m annually from sponsors such as GoToMeeting and Audible.com).

I truly hope Flattr.com prevails in the battle for content reciprocity.

Do you think it will?

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by on November 25, 2009 Leave a Comment

Roofs, hooves and When SEO Goes Bad

oopsie

Apologies if you have a crap RSS reader since you may not have been fortuitous enough to have digested the visual pun. In a nutshell it’s an SEO software vendor spelling ‘website’ wrong which has replicated in its Google search results.

As you’ll now understand, it wasn’t that funny, anyway. More… ironic. I think the world needs a little more irony. And copper – have you seen the prices these days? Bandstands the world over are having to content themselves with a rather putrid but eminently more cost-effective concoction of steel and whelks to refit their roofs.

Someone was asking me the other day why we have this problem with roofs and hooves. You see, if you start with a singular of either, said word ends in an f. But when you duplicate the roof or the hoof, you enter into the murkiest of grey areas uncontestable by even the most erudite of English professors. Roofs and hooves.

I feel a book coming on.

Which reminds me of a short monologue from Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani on one of my favourite podcasts about her new book on Google Wave which you can read in chunks for free. She was eulogising about this ‘organic, living’ model for 21st century educational books espoused by her latest. When you publish on dead wood, you have no way to update. Publish an electronic version that lives (probably in the cloud) and it’s an ever-growing, ever-giving thing of beauty beholden.

I quite agree. I’ll be following the Trapani treatment myself in coming months. I have a great idea, an altruistic statement on behalf of Word And Mouth. It’ll benefit you all. And me. Catharsis for a writer, soup for the business soul.

Amen!

PS for those lucky web denizens who have got this far, consider this quote of epiphany, also carved from the majesty that is TWIT.tv’s This Week in Google: Do what you do best, link to the rest.

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by on November 23, 2009 8 Comments

gigadial, future of podcasting

top of the hour with gigadial

top of the hour with gigadial

If you haven’t come across this mightily impressive website/service yet, you’re in for a treat. Word And Mouth says it, so it must be true…

Simply, gigadial creates a ‘station’ of your favourite podcasts.

There are six of the best on the Word And Mouth Gigadial channel:

  • Cheap Ass Gamer. Loveable guys from the States eulogising – nay, rhapsodising – about their passion for joystick-trembling fun. With a healthy dollop of asides. Last week it condoms with dinosaurs on the packet. Incredible humour considering the niche could be considered geeksville.
  • TWiT (This Week in Tech). Leo Laporte, my favourite and arguably among the wealthiest podcaster on the planet, takes a panel of different and respected folks and talks about the tech news of the week. A long listen at about 100 minutes, this stimulating ‘cast is essential for keeping ahead of the curve on what’s happening on the web and beyond.
  • Marketing Over Coffee. John Wall knocks up an incredible array of internet marketing-related stuff on this fabulous ‘cast for those in any way attempting to prize the best from the web.
  • Answer Me This! I don’t know what it is that makes me love you so, but AMT! is staggeringly funny and absolutely politically incorrect. Perhaps that’s it. A showcase for Helen and Olly, two of the finest unexpected comics in the UK. Superb!
  • Freelance Radio. For the indie contractor or freelancer this is an essential guide to ‘getting it right’. Packed with useful advice and inspiration, and comprising a team of established sole traders keen to spread success widely. From the kids at freelanceswitch.com.
  • FrequencyCast. A superb guide to all things TV, gadget and gizmo for a UK crowd. In the running for the European Podcast Awards this year, so definitely worth an ear. Driven by feedback from its listeners – as every podcast should be.
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