Kachingle has been the featured in hundreds of stories, and thousands blog posts and tweets, since February 2009. That’s when we first started talking publicly about our approach to monetizing websites and blogs. Below is just a fraction of the articles and podcasts, or search for Kachingle on Google or Twitter.
“Kachingle”: Ein Sparschwein teilt aus
May 16,2010 by von Patricia Käfer
Die Presse is one of the major daily newspapers in Austria and this article covers the recent German launch of our service. Two of our early adopters, Bill Mitchell (Poynter Entrepreneurs) and David Röthler (http://politik.netzkompetenz.at/), are quoted. Mitchell explains that neither paywalls nor advertising will provide sufficient revenue for major media companies but crowdfunding (a la Kachingle) just might. Röthler says he likes Kachingle’s simplicity, transparency and social recognition.
———————————————————————————
Kachingle, Kachangl, Kachumm
May 6, 2010
Ralf Thees writes about his decision to add Kachingle to hyperlocal German site Würzblog.
———————————————————————————
Sind Leser bereit, Blogs finanziell zu würdigen?
May 5, 2010 by Karsten Wenzlaff
vorwaerts.de interviews Ralf Thees about his decision to add Kachingle to hyperlocal German site Würzblog.
———————————————————————————
“Free as in beer, or free as in e-book?”: Ein Überblick zu alternativen Web 2.0-Geschäftsmodellen
April 28, 2010 at e-book-news.de
Vor allem für den Online-Journalismus, aber auch die Blogosphere insgesamt gibt es eine spannende Alternative zwischen Paid Content und Kostenlos – das sogenannte “Crowdfunding”. Diese Methode verbindet auf intelligente Weise Web 2.0 und Micropayments. Ein bereits funktionierendes Beispiel ist der von Silicon-Valley-Unternehmerin Cynthia Typaldos gegründete Crowdfunding-Service “Kachingle”. Content-Provider wie Blogs oder Online-Magazine können sich bei Kachingle registrieren und ein spezielles Widget auf ihren Seiten installieren. Wenn den aktiven “Kachinglern” der angebotene Inhalt gefällt, klicken sie ganz einfach das Medaillon an – und zählen damit zu den offiziellen Unterstützern dieser Seite. Die Umverteilung der aus der Crowd gesammelten Funds richtet sich danach, wie oft eine Seite im Abrechnungszeitraum besucht wurde. Ein ähnliches Prinzip verfolgt auch Pirate-Bay-Mitgründer Peter Sunde mit dem Projekt “Flattr”. “Flattr is a wordplay of flattr and flatrate. With a flatrate fee, you can flattr people”, sagt Sunde und setzt statt auf Piraterie & File-Sharing nun auf eine ganz legale Variante zu Paid Content. Im Moment ist Flattr allerdings noch in der Private Beta-Phase – doch wenn das Modell so populär werden sollte wie weiland die Pirate Bay, wären wir wohl einer Kulturflatrate wirklich schon sehr nahe.
English translation: 5th Crowd Funding – on the way to the grassroots cultural flatrate
Especially for online journalism, but also the blogosphere, there are a total of exciting alternative between free and paid content – the so-called “Crowd Funding”. This method combines in an intelligent way, Web 2.0 and micropayments. A working example of the already founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Cynthia Typaldos Crowd-Funding Service is Kachingle. Content providers such as blogs and online magazines can register with Kachingle and install a special widget on their pages. If the active “Kachinglers” like the content offered, they simply click on the medallion once- and rank among the official supporters of this page. The redistribution of funds collected from the crowd depends on how often a site has been visited in the accounting period. A similar principle also follows Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde with the project “flutter”. “Flutter is a wordplay of flatrate. With a flatrate fee, you can flutter people, “said Sunde and does not rely on piracy and file-sharing now in a completely legal alternative to paid content. At the moment, however, still flutter in the private beta – but if the model should be as popular as once the Pirate Bay, we probably would be a culture flatrate really very close.
———————————————————————————
Micropayment in der deutschen Blogosphäre: Kachingle
April 14 by Karsten Wenzlaff
Das Ziel Crowdfunding für gute Internet-Inhalte möchte der Online-Dienst Kachingle ermöglichen. Vergleichbar ist der Ansatz mit einer freiwilligen GEZ-Zahlung, aber in diesem Fall bestimmt der Nutzer selbst, welche Inhalte Anteile erhalten und wie viel er zahlen möchte. Umfassende Diskussion über den Dienst wurde in deutschen Blogs beispielsweise bei Der Spiegelfechter und im Kulturmanagement Blog geführt.
English (via Google Translate)
The goal of Crowd Funding for good Internet content is enabled by the online service Kachingle. Similar to the approach of voluntary pay-TV licensing, but in this case what content will receive shares and how much to pay is determined by the user himself. Extensive discussion of the service has been in German blogs such as Der Spiegel fencers, and in arts management blog led.
———————————————————————————
This Week in Review: The iPad has landed, WikiLeaks moves toward journalism, and net neutrality is hit
April 9, 2010 by Mark Coddington
In other paid-content news, the Chicago Reader has an informative profile of the interesting startup Kachingle, which allow users to pay a flat fee to read a number of sites, then designate how much of their money goes where and trumpet to their friends where they’re reading.
———————————————————————————
Kachingle Doesn’t Have Media Saying KaChing Just Yet
April 8, 2010, by Rachel Kaufman
A service that allows readers to voluntarily tip as many news sites as they want launched publicly last month, and the money is already rolling in. Not.
According to the Chicago Reader, Kachingle, which is a new service that combines crowdfunding and social networking, the product isn’t yet “the wave of the future…The scale of the profits might astonish you. To the World Security Institute’s four-year-old Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, $54.95. To the veteran Center for Investigative Reporting, $20.86. To the Boulder Daily Camera, $22.45. And to the hottest site of them all, Carta.info, $117.16.”
So now we wait and wonder if this new thing is finally the thing that saves media.
———————————————————————————
Chicago Reader: Pay for News, Then Brag About It
April 8, 2010 by Michael Miner
Problem solved. Crisis averted. Revenue has finally begun to flow to Internet news sites directly from the heretofore freeloading public. Those of us who feared this day would never come can drink a glass of warm milk and get some sleep.
[E]arly returns don’t establish Kachingle, launched publicly just a month ago, as the wave of the future. They do show that the Silicon Valley-based start-up can function the way Cynthia Typaldos hoped it would. Typaldos’s premise is that most people will pay for the things they value that don’t grow on trees, but only—this is the catch—if the method of payment is fair and easy.
“There have been a lot of models online that haven’t worked,” says Mark Stanley, the Pulitzer Center’s new-media strategist. “”Kachingle seems easy enough that it might work. It was, at least for me, one of the most original ideas I’ve heard as far as getting people to contribute to paid online content. It’s not only about making money. It’s about getting people to invest in your site and make a deeper connection with your site.”
———————————————————————————
Online-Magazin rund um das elektronische Lesen eröffnet Internet-Buchhandlung
April 8, 2010 (Translation from the German via Google)
E-Book-News belongs to the Kachingle network along with opening its online ebook store. “Besides the political and media blog CARTA E-Book-News was the first online magazine in Germany that has offered this intelligent alternative to paid content and paid Internet access. To this approach, we remain true in the future. Kachingle is the most direct form of support – and allows our content to remains completely free.”
———————————————————————————
Lattitude: “Kachingle: The Future of Free?”
April 6, 2010 by Kim Gaskins
Kim Gaskins is the Director of Content Development for Latitude, an international research consultancy, and she recently published Kachingle: The Future of Free?, an analysis of Kachingle inspired after the Lattitude team was “intrigued by the simple elegance of the idea.”
First, we simply like the notion that people are willing to pay for something of value to them.
We like that if Kachingle… was widely adopted, it might raise the standards for content quality (or connect them more directly to the people actually engaging with the content); it’d tie content quality, user engagement, and user loyalty more concretely to revenue.
———————————————————————————
Kachingle – Crowdfunding Sites You Love
April 7, 2010 by Craig Agranoff
Tip jars, “Donate” buttons, and similar funding options for the struggling free content provider are nothing new. They rarely work, however. Once in a while, something comes along that actually works. Kachingle is one that has potential to be the best way for many to monetize their efforts.
The breakdown isn’t bad either. 10% each goes to Kachingle and to PayPal (between fees for your payment to Kachingle and the fees the site owner pays to receive PayPal as well). The remaining 80% is split between your choices evenly, so each site gets $1.33 each every month.
———————————————————————————
The Miami Herald drops the ball
April 6, 2010 by Steven F. Taylor
Kachingle has an interesting idea, although I have not fully assessed how profitable/widely used they are. They have users who register a payment method with them, and can contribute to participating blogs or websites quickly and easily. The Miami Herald could have used this service, or a similar service. One of the major benefits of to the Herald of using a third party provider is that the Herald would be conferring significant benefits to Kachingle (Users and exposure)… and could use this to bargain for better terms or even money back! The lack of imagination in execution is astounding.
So newspapers, please don’t half-ass a roll-out again, or two months later the Huffington Post is going to gloat.
———————————————————————————
Kachingle – micropayment crowdfunding for digital stuff
April 1, 2010 by Nigel Powell
We also believe that because it takes real time, money, and insight to create and maintain valued online content and services, a business model for sustaining them must be available. Advertising, freemium, product sales, and subscription business models are partial answers, but Kachingle is a more direct mechanism that can complement these forms of revenue generation.
———————————————————————————
Can you spare some change for a website?
by Greg Avery Friday, March 12, 2010
A virtual tip jar appeared recently on the website of Boulder’s main daily newspaper, the Camera.
On the paper’s home page www.dailycamera.com, next to the stories and space to leave news tips, is the Kachingle button allowing readers to drop a donation into paper’s account.
Kachingle.com is among many forays into what’s known in the industry as micropayments. It’s an international startup, with offices in Silicon Valley, Calif and Paris.
Micropayments represent the idea that appreciative readers can support websites — primarily newspaper sites, nonprofit investigative journalism outfits and blogs — by leaving a few pennies behind after visiting.
It’s the counterpart to putting news behind a pay wall and making online readers pay a few dollars up front.
For the entire article, please go here.
———————————————————————————
NUEVO SERVICIO PARA MONETIZAR TUS CONTENIDOS
Kachingle o el Mezenazgo 2.0 in Spanish
Kachingle o el Mezenazgo 2.0 in Spagooglish
March 4, 2010 undernews.com
This is one of the best articles that has been written about Kachingle. The author totally understands the financial transparency issue and explains it beautifully, even reading it thru a Spagooglish translation.
Below is just an excerpt — click on one of the links above for the entire article.
En primer lugar, el precio no es fijado por las propias webs generadoras de contenido, tal y como sucede por ejemplo con los modelos de suscripción, donde todos pagan una cantidad fija por igual. En el caso de Kachingle, nuestra donación mensual ($5 mensuales) se redistribuye entre aquellas páginas (adscritas al sistema) que más visitamos. Es decir, el servicio pretende democratizar el reparto de beneficios en función del valor aportado a los usuarios.
En segundo lugar, está la transparencia. En principio, el hecho de que Kachingle nos permita financiar aquellas páginas que realmente nos gustan y que nos aportan contenido de calidad está muy bien. Pero, como ocurre con las ONG´s, el sistema necesita credibilidad. Y por ello precisamente han optado por una política de total trasparencia:
- Los kachinglers pueden ver todas las contribuciones realizadas a una web.
- También pueden hacer públicas sus propias contribuciones voluntarias.
- Esta apuesta por la transparencia hace que cualquier kachingler pueda verificar fácilmente si su aportación ha llegado a la/s página/s que sigue.
- Kachingle es igualmente transparente en lo que respecta a su modelo de negocio y a las comisiones que cobra por el servicio.
———————————————————————————
Sprinkle … love … for digital stuff
Kachingle, an online service designed to make it easy for online media consumers to leave thank-you gifts, officially began operation with 75 sites participating, including the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Cyberjournalist.net, the company says.
Others are “queued up” to go live, including the Center for Public Integrity. Newspapers in Boulder, Colo., and Sioux City, Iowa, also have signed up so far.
Their slogan has evolved from “Sprinkle change on the content you love” to “Crowdfunding sites you love” and now “Social cents for digital stuff.”
See Current’s article and the Kachingle website.
———————————————————————————-
kachingle – Los lectores pagando a los escritores en la web
Por Juan Diego Polo
March 2, 2010 wwwhat’s new
Kachingle nos ofrece una interesante forma de ganar dinero con nuestros contenidos, aunque para ello necesite de una comunidad de lectores que esté dispuesta a realizar micropagos por ellos. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Thank-You-Economy
Bezahlen, wenn’s gefällt
Freiwilliges Spenden könnte Gratiskultur im Netz ablösen
March 2, 2010 DRadio Wissen
Radio Interview: Thomas Jaedicke im Gespräch mit Robin Meyer-Lucht Herausgeber von carta.info, das selbst bei kachingle mitmacht.
Bezahlschranken im Netz, das funktioniert eigentlich nicht. Die allgemeingültige Gratiskultur könnte aber auf Dauer zu einem Qualitätsverlust bei ambitionierten Projekten führen.
Mit der sogenannten Thank-You-Economy, die in den USA schon weit verbreitet ist, könnte sich jetzt auch bei uns einiges ändern. User zahlen freiwillig einen selbst festgelegten Betrag, wenn ihnen etwas gut gefallen hat. Micropaymentsysteme wie kachingle.com und flattr.com sorgen dafür, dass Spenden durch einen simplen Klick auch wirklich auf den Seiten ankommen, für die das Geld bestimmt ist. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle: Micropayments für Webinhalte
March 2, 2010 web2null
Kachingle ist ein Tool, mit dem Webseitenbetreiber durch Micropayments für ihren Content bezahlt werden können.
———————————————————————————
March 1, 2010 zurPolitik.com
bei Heinz Wittenbrink
…Bei Kachingle stellen User einen monatlichen Fixbetrag (meist $ 5,-) zur Verfügung. Wenn sie Websites besuchen, die Mitglied des Kachingle-Netzwerks sind, können sie auf diesen Seiten auf einen Button klicken und ihnen so einen Betrag zukommmen lassen. Die Kachingle-User können auf ihren Profilen z.B. bei Facebook publizieren, was und wem sie zahlen. (Ausführliche Erklärung auf der Kachingle-Site oder hier.). Full story…
———————————————————————————
News-Sentinel, The Record and other papers are asking: Should readers be charged for online content?
Some offer a startling model for the news online business: the pornography industry…For many pornography sites, users pay one of several flat rates for a membership that can last for anywhere between a month to a year. Marty Weybret, publisher for the Lodi News-Sentinel, disagrees. “The news is not as sexy as pornography,” he said. As it has always been with newspapers, coupling audience with advertising dollars is the key to the success of online newspapers.
“Any time you diminish the audience size, you diminish the effectiveness of advertising,” Weybret said. Newspapers could also take a page from the blogosphere by adding virtual tip jars to their Web sites. One such Web site, www.kachingle.com, enables users to make small donations to sites they frequent. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Robin Meyer-Lucht über den Ausbau des Autoren-Portals Carta
“Mehr auf audio-visuelle Inhalte setzen”
Das Autoren-Portal Carta ist seinem inoffiziellen Ziel, ein deutsches Politico-Crunch zu werden, ein Stück näher gekommen. Seit wenigen Wochen rangiert das Online-Magazin in den Top Ten der Deutschen Blog-Charts, ist also eines der meist verlinkten Blogs hierzulande. Im vergangenen Jahr erhielten die Macher den Grimme Online Award in der Kategorie Redaktion und Autorschaft. MEEDIA sprach mit dem Herausgeber Robin Meyer-Lucht über Redaktionsabläufe und die Zukunft des Autoren-Netzwerks. Full story in Deutsch…
(Article essentially describes how Carta.info aims to become the Politico of Germany, and one way it’s helping raise revenue is by using Kachingle. Via Google Translate, story in English…)
———————————————————————————
Mikro-Finanzierung für Fundraising (Micro-Financing for Fundraising)
Mikro-Finanzierung (bzw. Micro-Financing) ist ein wichtiges Thema in der Finanzierung von journalistischen oder redaktionellen Inhalten von Blogs oder anderen Online-Medien. Die Leser können kleinere Geldbeträge (also ab 0,01€) spenden, die dann akkumuliert den Anbietern von redaktionellem Inhalt überwiesen werden. So verringern sich einerseits die Transaktionskosten, andererseits wird die Hürde für die Leser geringer, für redaktionelle Inhalte im Netz zu bezahlen. Full story in Deutsch… And in English via Google translate…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle Cited in Wikipedia under “Crowd Funding”
One of this century’s symbol of popular culture is having a reference in Wikipedia. So it must be that Kachingle is entering today’s lexicon as there’s a section now on “Crowd Funding” with citations in television, film, sports, and of course, journalism. It’s not the best written article — yet. But it being the living, breathing document that it is, it’s sure to change as crowd funding, and Kachingle in particular, continues to grow in awareness. Click here for a link to the citation.
———————————————————————————
I’ve been quietly keeping an eye on Kachingle to see when they would launch and was excited to get an email from Bill Lazar, Kachingle’s Marketing Engineer, last week saying that they were ready for beta testers to come on board. They will be launching properly in early February. I think Kachingle is a really interesting idea, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to test it out. That’s the medallion, up there in the top of the right-hand sidebar. All you need to sign up with Kachingle is a PayPal account and a spare $5 a month (although you can spend more if you want to). That works out at £3.07 per month, which even in a recession I think I can spare! Read more…
———————————————————————————
My last Sunday Star Tribune newspaper landed on my doorstep early yesterday morning; by the time I’d ventured out to collect it, I’d already read the New York Times headlines, the Washington Post book pages, and my favorite funnies (including Calvin & Hobbes and Bloom County, blessedly rebroadcast in this digital age). I’ve let my newspaper subscription lapse because most weeks I find myself hauling unread paper to the recycling bin, and tend to use the newspaper more as a firebuilding tool on camping trips than as a news source. Not take the newspaper? Unthinkable! Full Story…
———————————————————————————
Inside World: How Newspapers Should Solicit Donations
In December, The Miami Herald added a link to the end of all of the stories on its web site inviting readers to make a donation via credit card to “support ongoing news coverage”…But Outing says the Herald is taking the wrong approach, calling it unsophisticated. “How about instead tracking frequent readers, and presenting them with a donation pitch after they’ve read a number of articles?” But when I talked with him, he was even more bullish about a different tack, suggesting that newspapers themselves shouldn’t even be involved directly in the soliciting of money. Rather, he thinks papers should join a third-party service like Kachingle. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Crowdfunding statt Paid Content: Warum “Kachingle” eine gute Lösung ist
German post that says…Beyond paywalls and piracy, there’s a better solution: Kachingle. Story explains why it’s added the Kachingle Medallion to their site. “Kaum ist die Paid Content-Debatte so richtig eskaliert – siehe Murdoch, Döpfner & Co. – da wächst schon das Rettende: Crowdfunding als clevere Alternative nicht nur für Online-Zeitungen, sondern auch für die Blogosphere. Kachingle.com will diese Methode der webbasierten “Umverteilung” professionalisieren: die trotz Beta-Phase schon aktive Web-Community verteilt Mitgliedsbeiträge je nach den Besucherzahlen an die assoziierten Webseiten.” Full story in German, and approximate translation in English.
———————————————————————————
Carta is one of Germany’s top media blog sites, and this story announces that it has now started using Kachingle and the reasons behind it: Der Paid-Content-Debatte fehlt es derzeit vor allem an einem: Es wird zu wenig gespielt. Es gibt zu wenig und erst recht zu wenig überzeugende Experimente. Es gibt sehr viele Appelle, dass doch endlich für Qualitätsjournalismus gezahlt werden möge. Aber es gibt (abgesehen von Apps) wenig überzeugende Ansätze für digitale Bezahlmodelle. Full story…
———————————————————————————
It’s no secret that news sites are having a difficult time figuring out the monetization of its news online. Goes back to what I have always contended — people pay for service — not content. We pay for the service of our news being delivered, we pay our Internet provider a monthly fee and we pay our cell-phone carrier for the service. (We even pay for water that comes in a bottle — but watch us howl if someone put a lock-box on a water fountain.) Full story…
———————————————————————————
Is crowdfunding the new way for companies to make donations?
Blog by the chief creative officer of the advertising and PR firm Mullen. Gives a number of examples of how crowdfunding is transforming giving, and cites Kachingle as one of the latest. “But crowdfunding actually offers us a chance to do more than raise money. It can transform the way we make charitable donations, give us yet another way to involve and inspire our community, and perhaps most importantly, increase awareness and garner attention for causes we support.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle: ein interessanter Crowdfunding-Ansatz
This is a German post that suggest that crowdfunding is an interesting approach to paying for free digital goods and that if it worked for the music group Public Enemy, then it might work for news. “Einen möglichen Ausweg bietet das gerade erwähnte Start-up Kachingle. Das Unternehmen mit Sitz in Kalifornien hat eine Lösung entwickelt, die ich zwischen der freiwilligen Spende und dem oben beschriebenen Crowdfunding-Ansatz ansiedeln würde. Gedacht ist sie vor allem für online zur Verfügung gestellte Texte, egal ob Blogbeitrag oder Newstext.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
To Save Journalism, Click ‘n’ Donate?
Do you hope to get audience support for some of your online content or from some of your audience? Or both? Or do you expect neither? …a dot-com called Kachingle is starting to roll out an online service designed to make voluntary support easy for even the most Internet-dazed, pledge-averse, marginally committed and low-budgeted Medici to virtually toss coins, or dollars, to reward the online media they love and appreciate. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Story on Kachingle by The Paypers, a European-based source of news and analysis for professionals in the global payment community
This is an interview with Kachingle’s European Director, Yves Huin. Responding to a comment that Kachingle is “unpredictable and unsustainable,” Yves said that Kachingle “may not be enough to save a newspaper that continues to operate as in the past, however the revenue generated from ‘Kachinglers’ can become as predictable as many of the newspaper’s other sources of revenue. Kachingle is also a powerful marketing tool that a publisher can use from testing and validating its editorial policy to getting higher rates for its advertising real estate.” Full Story…
PDF of complete article in Paypers newsletter
———————————————————————————
Kachingle: Digg-Style Micropayments for Digital Content Providers
Why we like Kachingle: First, we simply like the notion that people are willing to pay for something of value to them. (We’ve written extensively on Radiohead’s In Rainbows album “experiment,” which implemented a pick-your-own-price model for fans –- free included -– and went on to rake in the digital profits nevertheless). We like that if Kachingle, or another comprehensive, voluntary-pay model was widely adopted, it might raise the standards for content quality (or connect them more directly to the people actually engaging with the content); it’d tie content quality, user engagement, and user loyalty more concretely to revenue. Full story…
———————————————————————————
This weekend, Kachingle, one of the first of this new wave of voluntary-pay solutions I heard and started writing about in early 2009, debuted its service in beta. I’m excited to finally see this concept in action, and find out if my gut instincts are correct: that some websites and blogs can make a tidy revenue stream of voluntary user donations (a.k.a., crowdfunding).
It’d be great if you would “Kachingle” me, which means that you like my blog and writing enough to monetarily support it (along with your other favorite sites and blogs that will start using Kachingle). Full story…
———————————————————————————
Financer l’information en ligne : un modèle économique intéressant
Le coup de génie de Kachingle, c’est d’opérer un changement de paradigme : on ne paie plus pour l’information, mais pour la reconnaissance sociale que sa consommation nous apporte. Full story in French…
(Rough English translation: The stroke of genius of Kachingle is that it’s a change of paradigm: one does not pay any more for information, but for the social recognition that its consumption brings to us.)
———————————————————————————
Dass Leute für Inhalte im Internet nichts zahlen wollen, ist allgemein bekannt. Verschiedene Modelle des Community Funded Journalism wollen das jetzt ändern. Full story in German…
Kachingle was profiled this week as an innovative alternative for funding journalism at the Elevate festival in Graz, Austria (http://2009.elevate.at/en). The festival runs for five days and nights, and mixes music, art and political discourse. Commentator David Röthler moderated the workshop on community funded journalism. Here’s a report in English (using Google Translation) from the session.
———————————————————————————
Editors Weblog Editor-in-Chief interviews Kachingle’s new European Director, Yves Huin, on how Kachingle will put the “payment value” in the hands of the user. Excerpts: “With Kachingle, the exchange is not solely economic, but is about a reader’s relationship with the content. It’s the analysis and viewpoint that people are likely to support…something you have a personal connection with.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
米国のメディアは収入減から窮地に立たされ、各社は新しいビジネスモデルを必死で模索している（関連記事「メディアのリストラが加速」）。 前回の本欄は、新聞・雑誌サイトの課金代行サービスを提供するベンチャー企業「ジャーナリズム・オンライン」について扱った（「米新聞・雑誌のネット版、課金に向けて舵を切る」）。その一方で、「コンテンツは無料」との認識が定着した現状ではネット上での課金は難しいので、寄付を募る方が効果的だとする見方もある。そして、ネット上での寄付を可能にしようとするベンチャー企業も複数の会社が設立されるに至っている。 今回は、そうしたベンチャー企業の中から、ソーシャル・ネットワーキング・サービス（SNS）上で自分はいかなる人物かを明らかにするのが定着した流れを踏まえてシリコンバレーで創業したカチングル社を取り上げる。
(Rough translation: The U.S. media is facing declining revenues and needs to figure out how best to make money. Some believe content has to remain free while others think there has to be a paid model. In a previous article, I discussed one possible solution, Journalism Online. Today, we will look at Kachingle as an example of a Social Networking Service (SNS) that uses a contribution approach. An interview with Kachingle founder Cynthia Typaldos follows.) Full story in Japanese…
———————————————————————————
“Here’s an actual, practical example of how a company can come up with better solutions by applying Agile principles throughout their business. Kachingle has come up with a simple, elegant solution 1) by breaking down a complex problem to a small, core one and 2) by listening deeply to the key stakeholders in its market.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
“The gathering generated some controversy on blogs and in the Twittersphere for the panelists’ lack of diversity and lack of youth. And, frankly, going into the conference I had a premonition that this august and experienced group of leaders would deliver unwise (to my way of thinking) recommendations. But my fears were largely abated.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle’s Cynthia Typaldos was part of a who’s who 50-person intimate forum on the future of journalism, hosted by the famed Aspen Institute out of Colorado. Titled “Of the Press: Models for Preserving American Journalism,” participants came from publishing, high tech, government and the non-profit world…and included MediaNews’ CEO Dean Singleton, NPR’s Vivian Schiller, the LA Times former editor John Carroll, Salon’s CEO Richard Gingras, News Corp’s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller, Google’s VP of Search Marissa Mayer and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Here’s the full list of participants.
I monitored some of the streaming video of the proceedings. What was clear was that most of the traditional media organizations were still trying to figure out what to do. Only Singleton pronounced that he had the answer — put about 10% of premium content behind a paywall — but his reason was to sustain the PAPER editions of news. In other words, he believed newspapers were still very much alive and that you had to figure out a way to support them first — and not the other way around with the web. I don’t agree with him, and while it appeared others were hopeful he was right, few were convinced enough to try it themselves.
But even with Media News, that means that 90% of their online content will be free, which means a revenue solution like Kachingle would fit in nicely with their strategy. In fact, one of the key take-aways was that there will need to be multiple revenue streams, of which Kachingle was frequently mentioned as one of them.
There were some great write-ups from the conference: Here’s a nice overview from Catherine Lutz of the Aspen Daily News. She quotes Aspen Institute’s CEO Walter Isaacson as saying “It’s not a question of how to find new revenue streams to save the old dinosaurs, but what is the proper incentive to serve the reader best?”
As Editor & Publisher’s Steve Outing wrote, the conference “didn’t turn out to be the jihad over business strategy that I had expected going in.” In fact, added Outing, “I got a sense that for the most part, really bad moves like putting up high pay-walls on news websites won’t happen.” You can read Outing’s entire The Future of News, Viewed From Aspen’s Rarefied Atmosphere here. Steve also presented a good overview of the payment options at the conference although he didn’t have enough time to cover everything.
Here’s another good overview of the conference — this one by Tanja Aitamurto.
The morning sessions were streamed live. You can replay them by going to the GroundReport website here.
And here’s where you can see a slide show Cynthia presented positioning Kachingle against some of the other proposed revenue solutions, including Journalism Online.
———————————————————————————
A post from Italy: “Can you really convince users who are used to taking advantage of free news, to pay voluntarily for information?” Full story in Italian (though link has been a bit sketchy). And here’s the Google translation in English…
———————————————————————————
A post from New Zealand. “I’ve become accustomed to getting news and information from a wide range of sources. While I’m happy to pay for content, I don’t want to pay a subscription to all of these sources because it would be too expensive and fiddly and I only read a handful of stories a day, week or month from any one source.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
It’s clear that most newspaper publishers want to change online users’ behavior and get them to start paying for news. But how? E&P’s Steve Outing reached out to Dr. B.J. Fogg, an expert in “persuasive technology” who heads up Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab. If you want to figure out how to persuade your audience to donate money, or pay for online content, Fogg is your go-to guy. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Finnish story that asks: Would you pay to share publicly what kind of journalism you consume? Kachingle, a Mountain View, California start-up, and some other similar initiatives, believe so. This is how Kachingle works: Full Story in Finnish. (And the English translation…)
———————————————————————————
From the Digital Content Blog: “The question remains what content will news organisations and other publishers charge for and how will they charge for it? Will it be based on site subscriptions, syndication, micro-payments for individual pieces of content – the so-called iTunes model – or something else? Full story…
———————————————————————————
Swedish story about alternative revenue models for journalism sites. In two parts. kerstinsjodenpart1 gets you to the first story, an overview of the problem. And kerstinsjodenpart2 focuses on two solutions, Spot.us and Kachingle.
———————————————————————————
Es wird ernst: Die Medienbranche liegt am Boden, nimmt vor allem über das Web zu wenig ein, und will jetzt endlich Geld verdienen. Die Zeit der kostenlosen Inhalte neigt sich offenbar dem Ende entgegen. Während viele Online-Magazine in den USA darüber nachdenken, ausgesuchte Meldungen in Kürze nur noch zahlenden Kunden zur Verfügung zu stellen, setzen andere auf freiwillige Zahlungen. Vorreiter scheint dabei das Modell Croudfunding zu sein. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Is Crowdfunding the Future of Journalism?
July 16, 2009, Mashable
by Leah Betancourt
Crowdfunding, or getting many people to donate small amounts of cash to fund a project, startup, or service, is nothing new. Think public radio or television pledge drives. Think political campaigns. Think tip jar. Now, as the media landscape changes and traditional revenue sources are beginning to disappear, some forward-thinking journalists and entrepreneurs are starting to apply the crowdfunding concept to the news. A new crop of sites are combining crowdfunding with volunteer and professional contributions in order to source news that people want to read. Full story…
———————————————————————————
И читатели довольны, и блоггеры не в обиде: Kachingle
July 9, 2009, Money News (Russian)
by Roman Yuriev
Many users are fond of certain websites or blogs and would like to thank their creators. Authors, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind receiving remuneration for their work. Now there is a service that is ready to help, called Kachingle. (In Russian) Full story…
———————————————————————————
Who Will Speak Out For Us?
July 7, 2009, Saturday Supplement, Delo (Slovenia)
by Sonya Merljak
What is the value of online content? And what should newspapers do if they would like to charge for their content? For sure, they should offer something more, something better and something different; but how could they do it if the owners reduce costs on all levels? The answer may be “Kachingle.” (In Slovenian) Full story…
———————————————————————————
Newspapers are dead. Now What?
June 29, 2009, Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
Panel discussion
Here’s the video from a forum discussing the challenges journalism, particularly newspapers, now face. It was sponsored by Inforum, a division of The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. Speakers included Phil Bronstein, Editor at Large and VP for the SF Chronicle & Hearst Newspapers; Kara Andrade, Online Community Organizer for Spot.us; Lowell Bergman, professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism and producer for PBS documentaries; and Cynthia Typaldos, Founder and President of Kachingle. Watch Video…
———————————————————————————
Readers Want to Pay for News Online — So Let Them
June 19, 2009, Editor & Publisher
by Steve Outing
Here’s the latest from columnist Steve Outing, who gives a good rundown of all the alternative online revenue models, including Kachingle, for content sites. Says Outing: “The power of voluntary contributions is in the network. By allowing and encouraging online users to donate money to ‘all’ Web sites and blogs that they visit and enjoy, the network effect can amplify the call for donations.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Business Models For Journalism: Forget Paid Content!
June 9, 2009, Snurb’s Blog
by Axel Bruns
Post by Burns from the Alcatel-Lucent 2009 conference, where he summarizes the remarks of Holger Schmidt, from the conservative daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Of interest to us: “We are moving away from the big destinations (including the New York Times), and are moving towards brands that are able to be found all over the Web (such as Google Maps). Maximising shareability, encouraging sharing and distribution, is crucial in this context, then.” Full story…
Burns, himself, apparently shares these views: He coined the term produsage to better describe the current paradigm shift towards user-led forms of collaborative content creation which are proving to have an increasing impact on media, economy, law, social practices, and democracy itself.
———————————————————————————
Kachingle: Contributing Cash to News Sites You Enjoy
May 28, 2009, EditorsWeblog.org
by Emma Heald
Overview of Kachingle from World’s Editors Forum, the “the only network exclusively dedicated to senior newsroom editors from across the globe.” Reports Heald: “The idea is a good one in the sense that it manages to combine the notion that people should and can pay for news, without putting up paywalls that would block off sections of newspapers and seem incompatible with the idea that news readers should be able to jump around as they please online. It is also compatible with an advertising model.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Dollar-sprej ska rädda nättidningarna
May 14, 2009, NyTeknik
by Mats Lewin
Our first Swedish post, by the same author as the CNET article below. A rough translation of one of his lines: “It is in brief one of the most interesting ideas I have heard of in a long time on the financing of online magazines and other Web content.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle to ‘sprinkle’ dollars to online publishers
May 8, 2009, CNET News
by Mats Lewin
Overview of Kachingle model. “It doesn’t try to solve the underlying free-rider problem,” says Paul Romer, economist and senior fellow at the Stanford Center for International Development. “It tries to use volunteerism, altruism, and good citizenship instead. I like this aspect of the model. Economists and the policy makers who listen to them frequently underestimate the potential for this kind of motive to solve problems.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Google could come to the rescue, but won’t?
April 7, 2009, SteveOuting.com
by Steve Outing
“Right now legacy news executives are panicking, especially newspapers. They’re discussing schemes to put news content behind walls, away from Google’s prying eyes, and despite many rational and convincing arguments as to why that is a DUMB idea except in special cases, the movement appears to be gaining speed. (Instead)…Google could easily support (Kachingle) on Google News, by indicating when its source news sites and blogs are Kachingle members, and encouraging GN users to support news and online content by becoming a Kachingle member.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Cashing in on Content
April 2, 2009, The Guardian (UK)
by Suw Charman-Anderson
“Cynthia Typaldos, Kachingle’s founder and chief executive, believes that the subtle peer pressure of seeing others donate will be a key driver. She cites studies (PDF) that show people donate more to buskers if they see someone else give money first – eight times more, in fact. ‘What’s missing on the web are these social signals that people are extremely sensitive to. We believe we’ve got a mechanism to take those social signals and put them online,’ she says.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
The 2009 FOLIO: 40 – Our annual list of magazine industry influencers and innovators: Cynthia Typaldos
March 31, 2009, Folio Magazine
by Folio Staff
“Any system that incurs mental transaction costs for consumers will fail, whether it’s single-point micropayments or subscription firewalls,” says Typaldos, founder-CEO of California-based startup Kachingle.com. Full story…
———————————————————————————
Kachingle de laatste strohalm voor de krante
March 13, 2009, PlusPost and Rethinking Media
by Hella Hueck
Kachingle overview from the Dutch Media Professionals.
———————————————————————————
The Online Experiments That Could Help Newspapers
March 8, 2009, BusinessWeek
by Olga Kharif
Overview of some of the ideas that traditional print publishers are considering, including Kachingle, to stop their world from crashing down: “Publishers for the longest time were really in denial,” says Alan Mutter, a managing partner at venture capital firm Tapit Partners, which makes tech-related investments. “In the last six months, their sales are so bad, they realize they need to do things differently.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Will Report for Tips: The Kachingle model: move freely about the Internet, pay only for the news you like, and tell your friends
March 5, 2009, Chicago Reader
by Michael Miner
“My small contribution to the town hall debate was to sing the praises of a new online venture called Kachingle. It was a case of love of first sight—I’d heard of Kachingle only a few days earlier—and what won my heart was the premise that the public will pay for news if the paying is not merely easy but exalting. Kachingle is the first idea I’ve seen that’s psychologically astute.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Nova fórmula para a sustentabilidade financeira no jornalismo online
March 4, 2009, Mercato Etico
by Carlos Castilho
Portuguese posting about Kachingle.
———————————————————————————
Podcast | On the Media | NPR interview of Cynthia Typaldos
February 21-22 2009, National Public Radio
by Bob Garfield
BOB GARFIELD: “One advantage Kachingle would seem to have is that there is no pay wall. Newspapers like The New York Times have found that when they tried to charge users for premium content, it sharply reduced traffic and therefore the amount of money they could charge advertisers for advertising on the site. No such risk with Kachingle, you say, eh?” Interview podcast and transcript on the NPR website.
———————————————————————————
What Would Micropayments Do for Journalism? A Freakonomics Quorum
February 18 2009, The New York Times Freakonomics Blog
by Stephen J. Dubner
“In recent days we’ve seen Walter Isaacson, the biographer/pundit who used to edit TIME, write a TIME cover story in support of micropayments; in a Times Op-Ed, Michael Kinsley begged to differ; a not-quite-micropayment system for blogs, meanwhile, called Kachingle, will launch… Where will all this lead” For answers, Dubner interviews a group of people who have given a lot of thought to micropayments — William Baker, Alan Mutter, Clay Shirky, and Marshall W. Van Alstyne — the following: How would micropayments best work? And how possible is it that micropayments could be applied to the majority of online content, and how would this affect both online and print journalism? Full story…
———————————————————————————
Panik ist kein Geschäftsmodell
February 17 2009, Spiegel Online
by Robin Meyer-Lucht
Article about the challenges facing traditional media companies, and comments about a few proposed solutions, including Kachingle. Full story (in German)…
Zeitung als Shareware?
February 18 2009, Spiegel Online
by Frank Patalong
Poll indicating that 30% of users would be open to paying for online content. Full story (in German)…
———————————————————————————
Can Kachingle “Change” the Unpaid Content Paradigm?
February 16 2009, The Information Valet Project
by Emily W. Sussman
“I can see it now: everyone from my Facebook friends to the visitors to my personal blog doing a double take when they see I have a caring, philanthropic side — as evidenced by the fact that I carry my “Kachingling” wallet with my virtual self.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Newspay – Read All About Me on Kachingle Where I’m Paying for News
February 13 2009, Poynter Online
by Bill Mitchell
“Kachingle offers an economic model for news that is user-centric, voluntary, social and a little bit goofy. One thing it’s not is free. I think it’s got a shot anyway.” Full story…
———————————————————————————
Podcast | Website Looks To Solve Publishing Crisis
February 12, 2009, KCBS Radio, San Francisco
by Rebecca Corral
Early story on Kachingle.
———————————————————————————
Ville du gitt DB.no en liten slant?
February 12 2009, Dagbladet.no
by Jan Omdahl
Poll indicating that 22% of users would pay for content: Poll Results (in Norwegian)
———————————————————————————
Forget Micropayments – Here’s a Far Better Idea for Monetizing Content
February 12 2009, Editor & Publisher
by Steve Outing
The article that put us on the map: “I’ve yet to see any suggestions like a model that I learned about recently from a California start-up venture called Kachingle. I’m not sure if this company has the answer to save newspapers, but if Kachingle succeeds, it’ll make a lot of digital publishers (from bloggers to newspapers to Time magazine) a lot of money.” Visit his blog…
Pingback: Kachingle Blog : Kachingle the first to provide working social micropayment service using crowdfunding!
Pingback: Kachingle Blog : Willkommen