

Tipjoy Raises $1 Million For Its Simple Micropayment Platform - auston
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/24/tipjoy-raises-1-million-for-its-simple-micropayment-platform/

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mattmaroon
I hope your investors didn't pay by tipping you, or you'll only get about
$200k :)

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ivankirigin
I should also stress that for merchant support we'll allow you to mandate
payment before accessing the content. Whatever way people want to sell their
goods, we'll support it.

We think that because things are digital, non-payment doesn't really matter.
Digital media creators are always trying to enhance and connect to their
'tribe'. Putting a paywall in between your fans and your content turns them
away. Very often it turns them to "piracy".

Do you recall The Pirate Bay's policy on mandating payment? :-P

And how much are people required to pay to read your blog?

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mattmaroon
I was just teasing you, I like the way you have it set up. I have a feeling it
will lead to a higher total paid tip amount than requiring the credit card
right away.

I don't know what you mean about the Pirate Bay though.

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litewulf
I really wish people would upvote the article linking to their actual blog.

(Oh, and congrats :))

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davidw
Nice! I'll be curious to see where this goes. It's a tough sector because of a
lot of human factors (legal, micropayment issues), rather than necessarily
technology. But if they make it work... it will be very interesting in a lot
of ways.

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jacobbijani
Seriously. I have a feeling a lot of the money will go to figuring out a way
to lower the cut the payment processors take.

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ivankirigin
That's easy: use checking accounts. They are essentially free. That's why
PayPal pushes their users towards them. Credit cards are the expensive ones.

But the most effective way to reduce the percentage overhead is to make the
transaction bigger. That's why Tipjoy's aggregation of payments is good: pay
$1 in 100 different places, and your overhead for a credit card will be around
2.5% vs. 20% for a single $1 transaction.

You can also negotiate to lower the overhead, and to my knowledge, that takes
large usage more than it takes money. iTunes for example has 65M credit cards.
They do whatever they want.

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jacobbijani
Well, clearly you _have_ figured it all out :)

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HeyLaughingBoy
It will be interesting to see what kind of new services will now come online
as micropayments become more available.

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jmorin007
Congrats Ivan and Abby!

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bprater
Long live micropayments! C'grats Ivan and team!

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netcan
You know, it's surprising that banks have never entered this arena seriously.

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Prrometheus
It's hard to innovate in regulated industries. Nothing is more regulated than
money and banking.

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netcan
Sure, but they are theoretically in more of a position to do so then anyone
else (paypal, tipjoy, etc). They have the size to deal with it & they have the
ability/experience to lobby Governments.

They also already have their fairly usable online banking systems which would
make a good base.

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ivankirigin
Have you ever talked to anyone who worked at a bank? They aren't exactly out
for innovation.

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sethg
Leveraging yourself 30:1 to buy collateralized debt obligations doesn't count
as innovation?

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ivankirigin
I do agree that there is a great deal of innovation on the high end. You
should look into the automated traders they are making these days. Consumer
facing services, not so much.

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dbrush
Big ups to the Kirigins.

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blader
Congrats guys!

Remind me - who else in our round got funded?

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dc2k08
well done guys. what is $1million going to be spent on?

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maxklein
Well, I know the first thing I would buy would be a monocle.

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ivankirigin
A monocle behind my glasses would be too rich

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immad
Wow. Congratulations guys!

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aston
Congratulations, guys.

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DaniFong
Way to go Tipjoy!

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drusenko
Congrats guys!

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Tichy
Great news

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iamelgringo
Congrats.

