It turns out there is more to the story behind the sudden demise of Tipjoy. The micro-payments service was trying to sell itself, according to a source with direct knowledge of the attempted transaction, and even got an all-stock offer from Facebook nominally worth around $5 million. The deal fell through when Facebook walked away.
But Facebook didn’t walk away completely empty-handed. It managed to hire Tipjoy co-founder and CTO Ivan Kirigin instead. After the acquisition negotiations fell apart, Facebook reached out to hire Kirigin. They made him an offer, and he accepted. It is not clear what he will be working on, but Facebook Payments would be a good guess.
Some investors weren’t too thrilled because Tipjoy was still in discussions with other potential acquirers (including Twitter and PayPal). But once Kirigin was out of the picture, the other interest evaporated. → Read More
Tipjoy, a startup that allowed users to easily collect ‘tips’ from their readers and fans in the form of small Paypal transfers, is closing up shop. Earlier this evening Co-founders (and husband/wife team) Ivan and Abigail Kirigin posted a note to the Tipjoy blog announcing the site’s shutdown. Users with an outstanding positive balance will be able to cash out, but the rest of the site has been turned off.
Tipjoy tried to make web tips feasible by lowering the barrier readers would have to clear as much as possible — to leave a tip, users only had to enter their Email address, with no credit card needed. The amount of money left to a site was effectively a pledge to pay up at some point down the line (Tipjoy tallied up your tips so you could pay them all at once). Unfortunately, users often didn’t take the time to tip at all, and those that did usually didn’t actually pay up. → Read More
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the impending launch of Contenture, a monetization network for sites built around micropayments. The idea is that while traditional online advertising models work for some sites, others are better suited for custom-tailored approaches — and that’s what Contenture can offer. Today, it has launched its service is giving TechCrunch readers a special deal.
If a website owner signs up with the promotional code “techcrunch,” they will receive double affiliate commissions for a full year. A pretty good deal considering that because the way the network works, it’s in your interest to have more site owners sign up. That’s because the larger the network is, the more likely it will be that users sign up for Contenture accounts. And the more that do, the more you’re likely to get paid. → Read More
Say you have a group of individuals who all want to tweet from one account — right now, that’s a pain. You have to give everyone the password to the one account and have them log out of their own account and into this new one to use it. And even then, how do you know who is sending what tweet? You’d have to manually insert your own Twitter name at the end of your post or something along those lines. Now there’s a much easier way, and it comes thanks to a demo app.
Tata-tweet allows you to feed multiple Twitter accounts into one feed. When you do this, it will auto-append the name of the person tweeting to the end of the message. That means no more logging out from your account to send from the group account — and no more having to copy and paste the tweet if you also want to send it from your own. You can see this in action on the Y Combinator’s founders group account.
But there’s a slight catch: Using this app will cost you $0.99 a month. Yes, it’s a premium Twitter app. While those are a dime a dozen on platforms like the iPhone, they’re not so common on the web. And a monthly payment one is almost unheard of. But Tata-tweet is able to do it thanks to Tipjoy’s Twitter Payments API. This service extends Tipjoy’s social micropayment structure to the red-hot Twitter platform. And Tipjoy created this app to show exactly how it will work. → Read More
Social micro-payments enabler Tipjoy is releasing an API today that allows charities but also companies and individuals to handle relatively small payments over Twitter. This opens up a lot of opportunities (and possibly also a can of worms) for applications that can benefit from small transactions, from e-commerce services selling content, subscriptions, etc. to charitable causes and non-profits accepting small donations online to peer-to-peer payments between individuals.
Inserting payments made through Tipjoy into your Twitter stream can be an invaluable way to spread the message about what it is you’re buying or donating to, much like sharing your activities, digital media you like and applications you use can spread virally through social networking sites like Facebook. With the Twitter Payments API, developers now have an easy way to integrate payment handling into third-party Twitter applications and potentially benefit from the network effect for all the people who use their service. → Read More
It’s micro-messaging meets micro-funding. Marketing consultant Laura Fitton is trying to raise money $2 at a time through Twitter. She is using Tipjoy, which allows people to turn Tweets into payments (via PayPal). Help her raise $25,000 for Charity:Water by Christmas. Tipjoy investor John Borthwick has agreed to match up to $10,000 in donations.
For less than the price of a double latte, you can give clean drinking water to children in villages across the world. All you need to do is enter your Twitter ID in the widget at this link, and then fund a TipJoy account. You can give $5 to the Salvation Army or the Google Lunar X-Prize through TipJoy instead. → Read More
Tipjoy, a Y Combinator-funded micropayment startup that launched in February, has closed a Series A funding round led by Betaworks, with The Accelerator Group and Chris Sacca also participating. The company hasn’t disclosed the exact amount of the funding, but says that it is just shy of $1 million.
Tipjoy offers as a basic micropayment system that allows bloggers to leave virtual tipjars on their sites, asking for donations from users who appreciate their material. The system can also be used to collect money for any number of purposes, including charity and digital goods.
To enable Tipjoy, site owners embed a small piece of code on their page, which is linked to their main Tipjoy account. To leave a tip, visitors need only enter their email address and the amount they’d like to give. Tipjoy then sends them an email with their outstanding balance, which they can pay off using PayPal (credit card support is on the way).
The system’s most obvious flaw is that users are never held accountable for their tips – nobody comes after you if you fail to pay off your Tipjoy debt. But promising the payment was voluntary in the first place, so there’s not much of a reason to leave a fake tip. → Read More
How do you get more people top leave tips on blogs? Try to make your tip jar app into a platform that spreads the wealth to more people. Y Combinator startup TipJoy is trying to do that with a new platform API for Web applications that will let them share tips with users who contribute content. The platform is launching today in closed beta (the first 200 Web developers who mention TechCrunch in the application will get in). TipJoy already makes a widget that bloggers can put on their sites to collect tips from loyal readers. Tips start at 10 cents, but readers can choose any amount. All they need to do is put in an e-mail address. Payments are made via PayPal (which takes 2 3 to 6 percent—TipJoy takes another 2 3 percent). With the new API, Web apps and sites that rely on contributions from the audience will be able to split up any tips with those contributors as well. The hosting sites will determine the split, but TipJoy founder Ivan Kirigin expects the most effective formula will end up giving the majority to the contributors. Some API partners testing the widget include bug.gd, Disqus, IJigg, OurDoings, and Weebly. Below is an example of what a TipJoy widget looks like (any contributions will be donated to charity): While I like TipJoy’s approach, the sad truth is that people in general are bad tippers, and that is doubly true for the Web. Since TipJoy launched in February, it has collected only 7443 (mostly 10-cent) tips totaling $2589.86 across all the 300 blogs that use it. And the payment rate is only 25 percent. Maybe if tip jars spread, that payment rate will go up. But don’t count on it. CrunchBase Information Tipjoy Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
The idea of a “tip jar” on blogs and other content sites to help bring in a few extra dollars has been around for years. Donations and payouts are generally made through PayPal, and there are a number of plugins for various blogging platforms to make the process easier. New Y Combinator startup TipJoy is designed to make it even easier to get people to click that tip button. Readers are not required to create an account or have a PayPal account to leave a tip, so there is little friction to them getting started. If they want to leave a tip they just click the button and type in their email address. I’ve added a tip button below to show how it works – any money we receive we’ll be distributing back to other bloggers who add the button, and/or donating to charity. If you leave a tip as a new user, you start to build up an account debit. You can eventually pay that off via PayPal (TipJoy keeps 2% 3%), although no one comes after you if you choose to skip out on the bill. You can also start to ask for tips on your own site, and anything people leave for you offsets what you’ve given to others. The TipJoy site shows popular sites that have received a lot of tips, and you can also send any URL or email a tip directly as well. As a tipper, you can choose the amount you’d like to tip by default (starting at ten cents). Then, every time you click the tip button on a participating site, that amount is added to your bill. If you want to cash out of your tips you can choose to either receive an Amazon gift card or donate the amount to charity. For now, you can’t receive cash since the company wants to avoid becoming a regulated money transfer service. In the FAQs they suggest they’ll be adding this functionality eventually. I like the service because it creates a network around the idea of tipping for content. Users are both tippers and tippees, keeping a balance that they pay off eventually. I also like the fact that people don’t have to pay off that bill. It creates an interesting psychology where people find it very, very easy to leave the tip, and then may feel guilted into paying off the bill. → Read More
