Tipjoy for Comments Test
Micropayments have had several kicks at the bucket for as long as we could remember. A more recent attempt at it is tipjoy. You can read their FAQ and information to get a sense at how they are doing things differently than the other micropayment schemes. On the whole, I am enthusiastic about their user interface and approach.
While tipjoy was intended to reward content providers (i.e. interesting articles or useful software), I am interested in turning the mechanism on its head. In what cases would I be interested in rewarding my readers and users, instead of the other way around? The classic would be of course a lottery-based scheme to reward their patronage.
Of course, a higher-value reason why I would want to reward my readers is of course for market research. I still remember getting $100 for participating in something quite a few years ago.
So, in what case or scenario would you want to reward your users in a monetary way for their participation? Do you want more than just play-money karma? Penny for your thoughts…
April 20th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
And yes, I am willing to roll out the nickels and dimes if you have something interesting for me. Just include your tipjoy id just like this in your comment:
[tipjoy=Alfred]
But if you really don’t care you can just give your money to “pg” who is donating to EFF.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:19 am
So for example here, you wanted to just be good:
http://paulgraham.com/good.html
[tipjoy=pg]
April 25th, 2008 at 12:00 am
There’s been research in the field of education suggesting that replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation can lead to the extinguishment of the desired behavior.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
That is an interesting observation… I guess that’s like people saying “It’s not just about the money” when it comes to jobs and work.