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Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

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Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#41

Post by ersii »

jurre wrote: post #40
ersii wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean you're opening up account creation for the US, when that content has come around? Or would I, as a Swede be able to create an account and read (and pay) for the US content? (I guess I'm asking about 1) Account creation 2) Geographical restrictions)

We try to sign publishers without any geographical restrictions, but I think it's ultimately up to them.

So that means you'll open up world-wide account creation when you have some non-dutch content available? :-)

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#42

Post by akavel »

I'm not Dutch-speaking and tried registering -- successfully! There seem to be some purely English language articles/newspapers already there: I've found at least The Economist and WSJ/Wall Street Journal. Every new account seems to get free 2.50 EUR credit on start; later you can apparently pay with PayPal or credit card. (Note however, that I haven't actually tested reading any article or paying yet.) To create an account you have to "read" some Dutch -- but some common sense + Google Translate was enough for me to get through.

[Update] Tried reading something (from WSJ, fully in English indeed), then tested and confirmed that the "refund" works. Just FYI ("random trivia"), when clicking "refund", there's additional dialog asking for the reason. Translated by Google Translate roughly as:

Why do you want your 29 cents back? We want to know why you want your money back, so we can tell the author and publisher.

[ ] I accidentally clicked on the article

[ ] I find the price too high

[ ] The article was too short

[ ] The article was too long

[ ] The article was not what I expected

[ ] The article was not legible

[ ] Other...

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#43

Post by recursify »

Great idea - I'm happy to pay $50-$100 a year on good journalism, I just don't know where I want to spend that money and on what type of articles. The one click pay and refund policy sounds good.

Can't wait until you get more North American publications :)

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#44

Post by jurre »

recursify wrote: post #43

Great idea - I'm happy to pay $50-$100 a year on good journalism, I just don't know where I want to spend that money and on what type of articles. The one click pay and refund policy sounds good. Can't wait until you get more North American publications :)

Awesome to hear! :) If you want to stay tuned on when we'll launch in your country you can sign up here: https://launch.blendle.com

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#46

Post by phreeza »

I feel like the 'no questions asked' (or 'one question asked' as akavel points out) refund is really the killer feature here. It aligns incentives for journalists and outlets correctly, provides a feedback loop, and it also lowers the hesitation to pay, all at the same time.

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#47

Post by phreeza »

kriro wrote: post #28

The model seems to work and they seem to have great traction. I can see all the objections but the proof is in the pudding. Really liked this sentence from their answer to a critic: """You said you talked about the idea of Blendle when I was two years old. But Blendle is not an “idea”. Blendle is about execution. And because of that we’ve gathered more than 140.000 users in The Netherlands with a $0 marketing budget.…

Here is an even crazier idea: (micro)pay to cite instead of (micro)pay to read. Just going to put that out there.

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#48

Post by furyg3 »

mvdwoord wrote: post #11

Much like birger, I never paid for any of the 'paywalled' news outlets before. Mostly due to the terrible user experience, t&c, and lack of content (often single newspaper/magazine). Even though I find most content in newspapers not even worth reading, let alone paying for. I do really want to pay for some high quality articles and Blendle makes this possible. They nailed it for me with the money back option, truly n…

Before Blendle I only used paywalled sites that I had a physical subscription for. It was horrible (only the economist worked as expected). Watching magazines and newspapers implement their own solutions was just painful... some Dutch newspapers did an awful job with apps. Newsweek also had a hilariously user experience as they kept switching their strategy.

Blendle provides both an excellent user experience and a good solution to content providers who should really not be making their own apps.

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#49

Post by JeanMertz »

akavel wrote: post #42

I'm not Dutch-speaking and tried registering -- successfully! There seem to be some purely English language articles/newspapers already there: I've found at least The Economist and WSJ/Wall Street Journal . Every new account seems to get free 2.50 EUR credit on start; later you can apparently pay with PayPal or credit card. (Note however, that I haven't actually tested reading any article or paying yet.) To create an…

Awesome that you got it working. We are working on launching an English version in the near future.

Regarding the refund reasons:

If you refund within a given amount of time, you actually don't have to provide any reason at all (since we figured you didn't read the article anyway). It is only after that time, that we ask you for a reason, so publishers get a better understanding of why people chose to ask for a refund after reading an article.

Re: Blendle: A radical experiment with micropayments in journalism, 365 days later

#50

Post by wouterinho »

Quality of content in this way can be measured in these micropayments + refunds instead of points/votes. Down with clickbait articles and up with good content.

By the way, I also fit the target audience: not buying newspapers, but I have added money to my Blendle account and spend it every now and then.

I am wondering about the economics though: the traction seems good, but is it enough to really add value for the publishers? I'd love to see more numbers on this.

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