If you haven’t heard about Flattr let me tell you how it works – its business model and you decide if it makes sense. For me, I think the business model needs further tweaking.
Basically, Flattr wants users to reward i.e give money to their favorite websites or people. Favorite websites here actually refers to all internet content eg; websites, articles, images, audio files, videos, text etc. People here refers to people who are on Twitter or Flattr itself.
How it works
You signup with Flattr and add some funds to your account. How much money to add is totally up to you. Once you are done adding, you just surf the web as you normally do. However, whenever you see a Flattr button on some websites and if you like the content of the website you can “Flattr” it, it’s similar to Facebook’s Like button. But instead of just “liking” the website, here you are actually giving them some money.
How much money websites will get?
They have done it very straight forward, all your money is divided into equal portions and distributed to all the websites that you have Flattred within the month. Let’s say you have added $1.00 to your account and you have flattred 9 websites. That means at the end of the month, each website that you have flattred will get 0.10 cents. And the remaining 10% which is 0.10 cents, will go to Flattr system.
What’s the catch?
From first glance, there seems to be no catch. Especially for people who are giving money away. However the idea behind Flattr is that, the founders believe that there are some people who do donate money to websites, normally via Paypal donate button. These are mostly websites with freebies or open-source stuff. So people behind Flattr want to make this process of donating or distributing money to your favorite websites simpler – as simple as pushing the “like” or “flattr” button.
As for the bloggers, it’s just one more avenue to make money. You just have to integrate the buttons into your website and hope that someone will flattr it :)
Below is the diagram on how it works:
My suggestions to Flattr
My suggestions to Flattr
1. Very few people actually donate, and that’s a fact. I have experienced it personally before. I had done some freeware software and free website templates myself but got back very few bucks over the years. With this problem as a backdrop to Flattr’s business model, I think if it’s going to solely rely on “hope” that people will add funds to their accounts every month and diligently distribute it to all the deserving websites, then I think they are (gravely) mistaken.
2. Change the “flattr it” to something more simple and generally understandable, eg; “like it” or “love it” or just heart icon –
3. Currently only people who are registered with Flattr are able to “like” the websites. I think they should allow anyone (even non-flattr users) to click “like” buttons. Because asking people to register is a hassle, not many people will register. Let alone they have to make a little research on Flattr itself and how it works and add funds to their account and come back to your blog again and then click on “flattr” button…. i think it’s not gonna happen.
4. Here is a suggested tweak to their business model: Let anyone click on “flattr” button. But put security measures such as you can only “flattr” the same website once a week or once a month etc. So that people won’t game the system. Regarding the funds, instead of individual funds, combine all the funds, perhaps into different categories. So for example if I have selected “blogging” as my preference in my account, my funds will be allocated for “blogging” related websites together with all the other flattr users who have selected “blogging” as their preference too. At the end, you have a huge fund for “blogging”.
So this combined funds for “blogging” will then be distributed to all the blogs that people have flattred for the given month.
5. Introduce some promotional modules to the system. Instead of just me donating to others, let me submit my blog to the system and somehow allow me to promote it to others. StumbleUpon type of promotional opportunity would be ideal. Idea is to attract both: publishers and advertisers.
Website: http://www.flattr.com
