What will Nanotransactions do?
- Save high-quality journalism. There's very little money in the industry to pay for it because existing funding models
don't work. That's why we're flooded with 'clickbait' headlines and articles like, 'You won't believe
these ten reasons...' We have top-quality writers wanting to use
Nanotransactions today because nobody - not even top publishers - can afford to
pay them!
- Allows publishers and blogging communities
to charge just a couple of cents/pence for content – the Nanotransactions
fee is as little as one cent per transaction! (Receiving normal credit
card-based or PayPal micropayments costs over 30c per transaction.)
- Provides a near-invisible content payment
system which potentially works on any website – no more annoying, multiple,
paywall and subscription sign-ups and logins.
- Receive money using the same
account as you use to pay for other content: earn money by publishing your
own content and use it to pay to access other peoples’ content.
- Publishers can commission
freelancers to create original content for them without spending money
from their freelance budgets – the payments automatically get split (you
can choose the proportions) and both accounts, belonging to the
publisher and the content creator, get credited automatically,
- Republish other people’s
content and have all parties get paid.
- Charge in Bitcoin – smash those
foreign transaction fees.*
- Charge by the minute for music,
movies, video, streaming TV and radio (or even accessing websites) – up to
a maximum amount per day/week/month.*
- Potentially pay a few cents to
skip ads on videos.
- Potentially pay for WiFi
hotspots without lengthy sign-ups.
- Potentially pay for online
software services.
* These
features will appear as soon after launch as possible. They also represent
stretch goals if enough money is raised.
Why do we need Nanotransactions?
Have you ever
wondered why hard-hitting journalism has declined so dramatically? It’s because
investigative journalism is expensive and always the first to go when the industry feels the squeeze.
The past few years have seen many senior journalists leave the industry and be
replaced with juniors who are tasked with getting as many
stories out as possible. Meanwhile freelance budgets have collapsed so
experienced, non-staff journalists can’t get paid. This trend is set to continue
unless we start bringing some money back into the industry.
The two main current options aren't working. Subscription
paywalls are usually annoying, expensive and lock out over 98% of
regular traffic. Microtransactions come with significant fees and
annoying log-in procedures. But there are indications of hope.
In the US, Netflix led to a significant drop in illegal downloading simply by charging a
reasonable price for good content with an easy-to-use system. The popular video
game store, Steam, also has a thriving marketplace for gaming items with
prices from just two cents each. Why won't people pay for regular online content? Because there isn't a mechanism to do so.
Nanotransactions
is designed to be that mechanism. It provides the groundwork for a
new, very-low-cost online economy which doesn’t rely on expensive
subscriptions, advertising, harvesting personal information
or other issues which affect privacy. At the same time it strives to be near-invisible.
Our technology won’t be asking you to pay for stuff
that would otherwise be free – but it will provide the opportunity for a return to quality content in the cheapest way possible with the least
hassle for everyone.
Nanotransactions is an independent company and
we want to stay that way. That’s why we are wanting to crowdfund our technology instead of pursuing the traditional
investor approach.
How it works
Nanotransactions is not
an app which harvests existing content. It's a mechanism which will work on
every existing website - one that can be simply used on individual pages and
articles.
Consumers charge
up their Nanotransactions account (minimum $5) using whatever online payment
system they want (we’ll offer as many options as possible). The
credit card or PayPal fee from the initial account deposit is then amortised across all subsequent Nanotransactions payments. So, for example, a 40c credit card fee can get spread
across 100 x 5c transactions!
When it
comes to withdrawing money from your Nanotransactions account, we just wait
until you hit a minimum figure (probably $50 but we’ll discuss this with the
Nanotransactions community) just like Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliates already does.
FAQ
ZOMG WTF?!
All content should be free and you’re trying to make us pay for the internet. I
HATE you!
Nope. Don't hate us - we are definitely NOT doing this. We’re just providing a much-needed payment mechanism
that people won’t mind using in certain circumstances.
Current
funding models involve PayPal, credit cards, subscriptions, ubiquitous advertising
and harvesting all of your personal details. Would you really
not pay 5c for all that to go away if the system worked automatically and the
article exposed political corruption or gave you something unique and not
riddled with click-bait? If you still don’t think you got value, our automated
refund system means getting your money back will be a cinch.
There's no
point in asking people to pay for stuff that's free elsewhere. The whole
problem is that there are now large amounts of high-quality content which are unavailable due to a lack of money and a decent payment system. We want
to bring that stuff back. Because it's really really important! At the end of
the day, people should still be paying much less than they were for a daily
newspaper and monthly magazine way back in, say, 2004.
If you
have any concerns which aren’t addressed below, let us know and we’ll fix them.
What fees will you charge?
It's envisaged that the price will be 1c for 2-9c content, 2c for 10-19c content and 5c for content that costs more than 20c. We feel that flat fees are more friendly than the standard percentage rates, but this could change if the community wants it to.
This has
been done before and things like Flattr already exist.
Nanotransactions
is significantly different to everything else on the market. Any efforts before
were a long time ago (in internet terms), before the Social Media world that we
have today (where individuals have generated large, dedicated audiences) and at
a time when people thought paywalls and subscriptions would be the answer to
everything. They also had flawed business models and were used for different
things. This time we have significant publishers and writers with significant
audiences ready to go.
In reality,
it’s advertising that is by far the dominant way of making money online - subscriptions only work in certain circumstances. Ads don't pay terribly well for most
publishers or bloggers (especially when using things like Google AdSense). The alternative is to have a dedicated ad-sales set-up
which requires serious skills and funds to work on a commercial level.
Every existing
method is deeply flawed in some way. We just need a simple way to pay a
reasonable price for stuff.
Why would I
pay for something when I can get it free elsewhere?
The reason
there is so much same-same content out there nowadays is because commercial
publishers rely so heavily on revenue from adverts. Consequently, journalists
and other content creators have to focus on quick-and-easy stories they can
push out as fast as they can. If you want unique content and better,
investigative journalism, then you’re gonna have to pay for it. Existing
paywalls annoy everyone. But you’d pay 5 cents for important/unique content
that you wanted to see and couldn’t get anywhere else - if the system was simple
to use - wouldn’t you? Especially if getting your money back was a simple,
automated process?
I already
pay when I look at the ads
No you
don’t. This is a myth. Typical advertising costs on major newspaper websites
are less than $5 per 1000 views. That’s less than half-a-cent per article.
Plus, up to one-half of visitors use ad blockers and many can be bots. This is
on top of other major problems which derive from generating
revenue from publishing using ads.
Does it have
to work with the countdown and timer?
No. It can
easily work with a “Pay 5c to read more” message part of the way down an article.
There will be even more options down the line.
Does it work
with multiple currencies?
There are
many ways of doing this and we’ll be discussing them with the community to see
what people want. Initially we’re looking at supporting US, UK and Australian
currencies but much will depend on the first, major adopters and what they want
to use. Bitcoin would fix many issues down the line.
What’s your
strategy?
We want to
keep the price as low as possible to ensure high usage. We’re not
expecting a major publisher to run with it immediately, but we already have
many writers with dedicated followings (whether on the web or social media)
queuing up to try it. We just need to build it now.
The current
conversion rate for traditional Paywalls is less than 2%. We’re adamant this
rate will be dramatically increased with a pay-per-view, non-subscription
mechanism which charges an amount of money that you wouldn’t bother picking up
if it fell out of your pocket, on the occasional occasions where you really want to
read something. Sure, subscriptions work fine in some specific areas. Adverts
work fine in others. But there literally isn’t a way to pay for casual content which doesn't suck.
There needs to be and Nanotransactions is it.
Why are you
doing this?
The head of
Nanotransactions is currently an Editor for a public broadcaster with
significant commercial publishing experience. When one of the country’s top
freelancers came asking for more work, because yet another publication had
closed, he knew his entire industry was in dire trouble.
Freelance writing
rates have collapsed. A few years’ ago writers could expect decent word rates
of 50c to $2 per word. Two years ago $200 per article (a several fold decrease)
became standard. Now professional journalists are being offered $100 and even
$50 per article from major global publishers. Many are actually expected
to write for free while being told the ‘exposure’ from doing so is good for writers’
other business interests.
Meanwhile,
many senior full-time journalists have left the industry altogether and, if
they have been replaced, it’s with juniors who are tasked with
pumping out as many stories as possible to get as many ads served as they can. Well-respected titles are closing all the time. This is not good for journalism (or even democracy!)
Quite
simply, there NEEDS to be a value placed on content again. None of the existing
paywall models work very well. They are annoying to use, they lock out over 98%
of traffic, they are expensive and there are loads of different versions. Also,
any solution needs to be independent. Nanotransactions has been designed by
people who work on all sides of the publishing industry. It addresses all of these
issues.
How do you handle security?
We won’t be
storing any credit card information – we’ll be using existing payment suppliers
like PayPal, Braintree and similar credit card systems. We’d like to use as
many suppliers as possible, so let us know who you like. Keeping all other
personal information secure will be a top priority and we'll keep what we ask
for as minimal as possible.
Who runs
Nanotransactions?
The head of
Nanotransactions is an Editor at a national broadcaster. Before that he started
his own (award winning) digital magazine publishing company which succeeded
despite operating during the GFC. Ultimately, though the business of selling
adverts did him in: he says it’s a HORRIBLE job if you a) aren’t a
specialist or b) don’t employ an expensive salesperson to do it for you.
His typical workflow meant that an issue could be created from scratch in just four days but selling the ads regularly took six weeks. After a while the prestigious
Launch Editor role at the national broadcaster looked just too tempting.
On the
development side, our team consists of highly-professional business development
offices with a history of producing AAA-list software. While Nanotransactions
could certainly be built for less, such is the importance of getting it right,
that we’re using the best in the business. And they require serious payment.
What's your Privacy policy?
We are very big on privacy and will do as much
as possible to protect it. We’d also like your views on what specific privacy features
you’d like.
Further reading
The Value of
Content TC;DR: a US story that went
viral on the need
for a viable payment system that does away with websites hiding content behind
paywalls, ads and other sign-up rubbish. It finishes with a plea for someone to
invent a system which charges 5c for content(!) He’s now a supporter of
Nanotransactions.
New
Scientist: Micropayments
now ready to slash price of online news
PageFair: Around
half of readers use Ad Blockers
Mumbrella: Guardian’s
global CEO labels Fairfax and News Corp metered paywall model ‘worst in the
world’
Mumbrella: Daily
Telegraph opinion editor Hildebrand: We can’t even afford to pay our own
columnists
Gigaom
Research Content
monetization: News licensing and syndication still need marketplaces and
infrastructure.
The
Information launches
with a letter from the editor explaining how journalism is
failing with many publications choosing quantity over quality. Discusses the
importance of paying for content there and also in this
article for Gigaom.
The Age: Writing
on empty
Let’s Talk
Payments: Payment
Entrepreneurs go after MicroPayments segment, $13 B+ Opportunity globally
The
Progressive: The
Wages of Words
SMH: Love
words? Love fair pay
Elmo Keep: They
Shoot Writers, Don't They?
Pay the
Writers: A movement to get writers
paid for their work again.
Yasmin Nair: On
Writers as Scabs, Whores, and Interns, And the Jacobin Problem
Thomas
Goodwin Blog on the
appearance of a two-tier
internet and the
damage that a lack of payment infrastructure causes to content plus the
horribly annoying commercial tactics that are increasingly being used to get
our attention and our money.
Media Watch (video): Paying
for News
Scratchmag:
Who Pays Writers?
Media Watch (video): Host’s parting plea of the importance of
paying for journalism even if you’ve never done so before.
USA Today: Pink
Floyd: Pandora's Internet radio royalty ripoff
The
Trichordist: My
Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89, Less Than
What I Make From a Single T-Shirt Sale!
Hollywood
reporter: Radiohead's
Thom Yorke Slams Spotify
Wall Street
Journal (with
Paywall!): A
'Crisis' in Online Ads: One-Third of Traffic Is Bogus
Media Post: The
Coming Subprime Advertising Crisis – the value of online content and ads is collapsing.
Shopparity: Infographic illustrating how 99% of every ad
dollar is wasted.
Irish Times: How
advertising has warped the internet economy
