introducing bitcents

Overview
What is bitcents?
For consumers
For publishers
For developers

What is bitcents?

What is bitcents?
bitcents is a micropayments system that allows publishers to charge on a per-story basis while embracing the web.
It is simple for publishers to integrate.
It makes it easy for consumers to discover and buy premium content.
It offers a platform on which developers can build.

Why micropayments?
Ethical, independent journalism is vital to democratic society.
For most publishers, online advertising does not generate enough revenue to support professional newsgathering.
The atomized way people read content on the web makes subscription-based paywalls frustrating and difficult for users.

Why embrace the web?
The web is an invaluable open platform for innovation, but open doesn’t necessarily mean free.
As more consumer attention moves online, trusted sources of information will become ever more valuable.
Online revenue begins with traffic , and traffic relies on discoverability.
Sites like Google & Yahoo News, digg, Twitter and Facebook send billions of clicks to publishers each month; rejecting them is bad for your readers and bad business.

Why a platform?
A workable micropayments system should offer consumers scale and ease of use . That’s what bitcents does.
Consumers also benefit from choice and innovation driven by competition.
Developer-built subscriber networks sit on top of the bitcents platform, offering their users unique tools to discover, share and consumer content.
All networks provide full access to content from every bitcents partner.

bitcents for consumers

Consumer overview bitcents makes it easy to discover and buy content
The user chooses a subscriber network that meets her needs.
Regardless of the network she chooses, her log in details will work across the whole network of bitcents publishing partners.
Pricing is transparent : each publisher’s pricing page is easy to find.
A footer on every page shows its price, along with tools and services built by the user’s subscriber network.

How it works for users
Content remains discoverable:
It’s easy for new users to register with a subscriber network:
A user’s log in details work across all bitcents publishing partners:

The footer
Every page includes a footer from the user’s network that shows the price:
The footer provides information about the user’s balance, along with tools and services built by the network:

bitcents for publishers

Publisher overview bitcents values content
Benefit from casual traffic while remaining the primary brand contact for your readers.
Integration is easy : four lines of code and two files on your website, and you’re ready to go.
bitcents can be integrated alongside your current subscription or registration system.
You are always in full control of pricing and your content.
bitcents is a partner committed to helping you make the most of your web content.

Integrating bitcents
Integrating bitcents is as simple as adding four lines of code to your story pages…
..and two php files to your home directory.
You can vary price by story, section, or the time since publication. As a bitcents partner, you remain in full control of the price of your content.

Caveat venditor
Publishers should think carefully about whether micropayments make sense for the content they produce.
Topics covered by wire services (e.g. national or international news) are plentiful online, as is commentary.
News related to a particular industry or trade, local news and scholarly publications remain scarce.
As news micropayments become more widely used, we’ll understand the market better.

bitcents for developers

Developer overview help people find, consume and share quality content
Developer-built subscriber networks are an integral part of the bitcents platform.
Every network’s subscribers can view the content of any bitcents publishing partner.
Networks earn a fixed percentage of the revenue they process for publishers.
Networks can provide additional tools and services to their users, e.g. ‘all you can eat’ pricing, charging in local currency, or tools for discovering, sharing or delivering content.

Practical considerations
bitcents processes page views from all subscriber networks, and makes the logs of your users’ page views available to you in real time.
You use those data to build tools to help your users discover new content that may interest them, share what they’ve read, or consume content in new ways.
Developers also make certain commitments to ensure a high-quality experience for consumers and publishers:
you agree to delete personal identifiers from your logs after three months.
you agree to pay your balance in full each month.
you make a deposit with us to ensure that publishers can be paid in a timely manner.
you agree to our published terms and conditions for developers.

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introducing bitcents

by bitcents on Sep 13, 2009

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