While the big boys of publishing are looking at methods of walling their content and then charging for it, smaller publishers such as bloggers will often look to making money from at least some of their content.
With this in mind, GoPayforit has launched its mobile small payments service in the UK, which allows content owners to sell content online and charge very small amounts (micropayments) for it.
It’s simple to set up – site owners add some code to their blog template – and then both pay-as-you-go and contract mobile phone users can purchase the right to view protected content via their mobile phone credit.
Purchasers enter their mobile phone number online, receive a PIN via SMS, then enter the code online in order to read the content. It’s supposed to be much quicker, and more secure, than messing around with credit card payments, even via a service such as PayPal.
A case in point, the company conducted a short test to see how many keystrokes it took to purchase something on a few popular sites, with the following results:
- Sainsbury’s – 122 keystrokes
- Play.com – 120
- Just Giving – 120
- PayPal – 80 (using address capture software)
- Marks & Spencer – 80 (also using address capture software)
- GoPayforit – 16
GoPayforit’s CEO, Chris Newell, said that, particularly for making small donations, entering credit card details can be a long and tedious process.
He said it’s also much easier for publishers because they don’t have to mess around setting up merchant accounts or paying hefty fees.
The only issue for publishers with a large international audience is that the system is likely to only work in the UK. However, if you have a strong UK audience, it’s an additional method of charging for content, selling e-products, or just having a virtual tip jar.
With many charities and TV programmes using mobile phone short codes to ask for donations or to allow voting, and so on, the public is getting much more used to the concept of donating or purchasing via mobile phone credit.
