A couple months ago, I heard about Flattr, an online service which describes itself as “a social micropayments system enabling you to easy share money to support things you like and to get support from your fans.” An interesting concept, Flattr bridges the gap between free online content and pay-walled content. It’s simple to use – after signing up for the service and paying a small monthly fee (a minimum of 2 Euros), you simply click Flattr buttons on sites/posts you wish to reward (for example, the button at the end of this post). The more times you click per month, the more your monthly Flattr amount is divided up. At the end of the month, you monthly Flattr amount (“means”) gets dispersed to the recipients, and you receive your income from people clicking your Flattr buttons. Confused? The above video might explain it a little better.
The past month was the first time we experimented with the service, and Flattr proved to be a viable business strategy. Not only does this seem like a viable option to receive compensation if you’re a personal blogger, but it also seems like a unique alternative to paywalls in the journalism industry. My only complaint is that Flattr only accepts Euros, but hey, the Euro is more valuable than the Dollar these days, so I shouldn’t complain.
We’re looking for content to Flattr and we’d love to reward fellow photographers, journalists and other creatives for their hard work. Let us know if you ‘Flattr,’ we’d like to send some love your way!
~ Chris Mackler
chris@macklermedia.com
~ Kristin Eberts
kristin@macklermedia.com
