
Apply HN: Scriber – Micropayment Platform for Publishers - nothingbutslide
URL: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scriber.io&#x2F;<p>Scriber is a micropayment platform which publishers can easily integrate with, and that offers a seamless transaction interface.<p>Most of us have probably been asked to either turn off our ad-blockers or sign up for a subscription when browsing various news sites. And it is a fair request, since those are currently the only sources of income for most publishers. The problem is that the ad industry has pushed the envelope so far that most people have had enough; intrusive ads that distract from the reading experience, tracks you across the web, and at worst infects you with malware, have become the industry norm. And most readers aren&#x27;t willing to commit to a subscription.<p>We believe it&#x27;s time to explore a different revenue model for online publishing, and seamless micropayments is the solution that is the most promising. The concept has been around for many years, but it&#x27;s only recently that the public has become truly comfortable with it through in-app purchases using their smartphones. There are mainly two factors driving the change, the first is its &quot;micro&quot; nature, the price is low enough to not warrant much deliberation. The second is its ease of use, the payment system is built into the phone&#x27;s OS, so most of the time you simply click &quot;Accept&quot; and then you&#x27;re done.<p>We want to let publishers offer their readers the same experience.<p>We&#x27;ve created a prototype at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scriber.io with an accompanying publication http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getexplorerr.com&#x2F;. We have yet to implement an actual payment gateway. Please have a look, trying it out from both a reader&#x27;s and publisher&#x27;s point of view. You can log into the publisher account that is connected to the aforementioned publication here: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scriber.io&#x2F;publishers#demo<p>Please let us know what you think, any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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6stringmerc
How would this compare/contrast with what the Featured Artists Coalition is
proposing with using block-chain type approach to publishing works? They're
discussing music but in digitial formats I don't see a large 'transaction'
difference between music and text. For reference:

[http://qz.com/620454/imogen-heap-wants-to-use-blockchain-
tec...](http://qz.com/620454/imogen-heap-wants-to-use-blockchain-technology-
to-revolutionize-the-music-industry/)

~~~
nothingbutslide
It's an interesting take on the problem, tracking who has bought what - and
for how much - through block-chains, opposed to having it stored in a
database.

I think it would be a bit hard to use for your average user though with the
current state of block-chains, we're working really hard to make the sign up
and transactional steps as easy and painless as possible. And it would have to
be managed through a platform somehow.

But we'll definitely keep an eye on how they get along with Mycelia, thanks a
lot for pointing it out!

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Gys
Blendle.com is already doing this. They have many publishers on board in
Europe and the US (The New York Times, The Washington Post en The Wall Street
Journal).

How will you improve on that ?

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nothingbutslide
Our approach is different than Blendle's and we believe that both of us can
happily co-exists.

To read articles using Blendle you have to do so through their app, where they
act as a curator. They offer a select number of articles that they think you
will like. If you want to read an article you have to pay a small fee that is
split between Blendle and the newspaper that the article originated from. Some
readers really like this approach since everything is gathered in one place,
and Blendle's execution is top-notch.

We believe however that many readers would like to be their own curators. Many
already frequent aggregate sites - like Hacker News - to find content they
think they will like. And we would like to give the publishers of that content
the ability to offer it through seamless micropayments, using their own apps
or websites. They will then be in control of the entire reader experience, not
having to outsource it to a third party.

So we believe Blendle and Scriber can happily co-exist since we basically
cater to different audiences.

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essofluffy
How are you handling the payments?

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nothingbutslide
The payment gateway will probably be Stripe. They support "auth and capture",
which is necessary with our plan to gather a user's micropayments into one
combined monthly bill. We might also include PayPal if there is demand for it.

We've been discussing when we want to ask the users for their payment
information. We want the sign up process to be as fast and painless as
possible, so we might give the first article away for free, and only ask for
payment information if the reader decides to buy a second article.

Once a user has saved a payment method to their profile, they won't be
bothered about that aspect ever again when buying articles, we just charge
them once at the end of the month for all the articles they've purchased that
month.

~~~
essofluffy
So you plan to bundle all the payments into a monthly bill to avoid fees on
each transaction? Doesn't this assume each user will be purchasing enough
content to make the fees negligible?

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nothingbutslide
It's partly to lessen the fees being paid for processing each charge, but also
part convenience for the user. We actually implemented a prototype top-up
system to see how the user experience would be, and everyone who tried it
agreed it was fairly cumbersome so we quickly scrapped that idea. And bundling
the payments makes for a cleaner card statement, although that aspect is
fairly individual.

As for the volume we would have to do; Stripe for instance charges 30 cents
plus 2.9% for each charge, so the first article a user buys per month pretty
much covers the flat fee, after that the percentage acts the same regardless
of volume.

Great feedback though! Keep up with the questions.

~~~
essofluffy
I was working on a similar service using Bitcoin so the idea was mostly
centered around maintaining control of your money and negligible fees. Our
main issue was lack of a market to pitch to, but this idea is definitely
something that I would hope becomes a reality.

~~~
nothingbutslide
We looked into using Bitcoin as well, but it proved a bit too hard to use for
the average user. We did some user testing with a few prototypes, and it was
really hard to make it work as seamlessly as we want the process to be.

As for the market, luckily we're based in London which is home to many of the
most reputable news outlets in the world. We're already in talks with some of
them, but it is indeed a hard industry to try to disrupt.

