
Some recent updates to Tipjoy - ivankirigin
http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/05/some-recent-updates-to-tipjoy.html
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Alex3917
I have a Tipjoy account, but I doubt I'll ever use it unless you add the
following functionality: Charge me five bucks a month, and then let me choose
however many sites I want for that money to be divided up among. The problem
with the micropayment concept is the cognitive load is through the roof.
Deciding whether to spend money on something is stressful, and Tipjoy asks me
to make that decision every time I go to a webpage.

Figuring out if a webpage is worth tipping is like going to the store and
trying to figure out which toothpaste is the best. It's stressful as hell
because they all look the same and you're afraid if you buy the wrong one
you're teeth are going to fall out. Except instead of having to do that every
three months, Tipjoy asks me to do it every couple of minutes. Even if you're
only tipping a quarter the cognitive load is just as bad as if it's a much
larger amount. In many ways it's worse because you know the people you're
tipping are only getting a quarter for the mental effort; the end result just
doesn't justify the process. So just let me contribute as big a pie as I want,
and then make hitting the tip button just cut out an extra slice from the pie.
It completely eliminates the stress of having to figure out whether or not to
spend money, and the cognitive load goes down a lot as well because you can,
for example, favorite Fred Wilson's blog once and then a slice of the pie
automatically goes to him each month. And speaking of, Crest solved this
problem by just releasing their new Pro Health product, the one that costs an
extra couple bucks but just does everything. Which of course is the toothpaste
I now buy. Tipjoy has to figure out a way to do the equivalent. Because as is,
Tipjoy makes being nice feel like pulling teeth.

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ivankirigin
Good idea. It's actually in the works.

But I think there is very much a place for in-the-moment support. It's such a
good feeling to get some excellent content online. I actually love tipping.

I'm eager to get that same feeling when I listen to music. It's exactly when
you're listening to favorite song of yours that you want to give back. That's
downright sexy compared with buying music on itunes.

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Alex3917
Good deal. Once you add that functionality you should get websites to offer
the user plums in exchange for giving them a slice of the pie. Sites like K5
and Fark and Slashdot already offer plums-for-money, so if you could make it
easier for more sites to do this it would seem to be quite viral.

Edit: I think the idea of donating in real time would be most rewarding
satisficers. The problem is that early adopters, almost by definition, are
rarely satisficers.

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mattmaroon
Wait, I thought you guys gave up because you stopped posting on your blog.

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ivankirigin
It was a tough decision, but we've decided to focus on our company blog full
time, and give up any further development.

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mattmaroon
Oh crap, nobody has written on our blog for almost 2 weeks. We must have given
up too.

