Changes to the Tipjoy button

The Tipjoy button has gotten an upgrade. Here's what's new:

If you're signed into Tipjoy, the button lets you know by showing your username and showing the tip amount you've set in your settings. For example, my buttons all say: "Hi abby, give 50¢"

If you're not signed in or not a user, you see the 'enter your email' field right away. We think this an improvement for several reasons. With the previous button we would frequently see users click the tipjoy button and then not notice that the email field appeared. This way they see right away what is required of them. Also, we've removed one click from the process, making things even more streamlined.

Now, your custom message appears above this area, and you've got another area underneath to add more notes.

We've also added a 'get tipjoy for your site' link on all buttons and a 'what's tipjoy?' link for people who do not have accounts. We've received a lot of feedback that people want a link to explain what tipjoy and this tip button is, so we are excited to include this addition.

If the user is signed in, next to the tipjoy links they'll see their balance. They can click it to go directly to our site and pay their bill. Tipjoy button owners should be excited about this - we've already seen it increase the frequency at which people 'make good' on their tips.

Once you tip, in addition to the 'give more' link you can now go directly to the 'comment' page. As long as you're signed in, the button will stay in the 'thanks' state, displaying the total you've given to it.

Finally, you can now set the width of the button to whatever works best for your site, and how much you want to say in your personal messages. The button below, for example, is 440px wide:




Customize your own button!

We've also beefed up our plugin support, and have new Wordpress and Textpattern plugins. Our TypePad integration now accepts the customization options you set. We're working on new site-specific instructions to add to our list - if you've got one you'd like to see listed, please let us know.

Now that it's in the NYT, the problem is real: social networks aren't making the $$ from ads they thought they would

NYT, June 15: MySpace Might Have Friends, but It Wants Ad Money

Here at Tipjoy we've been talking about this for months. The MySpace generation is not clicking on ads the way their older brethren are. Advertising relies on a very small sliver of the population (Dave Morgan, July 19, 2007):

"Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks."

And this sliver simply does not cut through the demographic of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

And yet the executives cannot let go of advertising. They're still thinking, 'how can we tweak the ads to dupe people into clicking them?'

Instead of continuing to think in the old mindset of advertising, it's time for a new model. One that supports the social connections between people, and does it directly, not through an advertiser third party.

This younger generation has already proven that it is willing to voluntarily pay for the music of bands it likes like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. Young internet users are using the internet to connect to people personally and directly. They don't see the artists they love as 'icons' but rather as peers, friends, all part of the same community. By enabling a way for people to become patrons of the virtual content they love, we're fostering those connections in a way that advertising never can. The site owners and artists who realize this will be able to harness the power, and the pocketbooks, of their communities more successfully than advertising ever will.

Add Tipjoy to FriendFeed!

The good folks at FriendFeed just added a bunch of new services, including Tipjoy!

To add Tipjoy to your feed, you need to make your tipping public by going here: tipjoy.com/settings

Then you should go to FriendFeed and add Tipjoy (it's under "See all 40 services"). You'll need to input your Tipjoy username.

Stuff people are willing to pay for is really valuable. When I did a search on Tipjoy for YouTube some of the best videos out there came up. Awesome! If you add your Tipjoy feed to FriendFeed then you'll be able to share your favorite content with your friends.

It's also cool that the integration is all with RSS. FriendFeed is just reading what we already make publicly available. Here is the page and feed that FriendFeed is reading for my tip stream.

You can follow me on FriendFeed here.

Developers, developers, developers!

Are you the best developer you know? Tipjoy is going to be huge. Because we only want the best, we want you to be a part of it.

Tipjoy is a new micropayments service that will revolutionize how payments are done online. We're strong supporters of free culture and currently support a voluntary payments model. We make it extremely easy for people to leave tips for stuff they love online. Rather than turning people away by gating content, Tipjoy allows people to choose to leave a tip for a content if they think it was valuable.

Requirements:

0. You need to be really, really smart.

Plus:

1. A sense of aesthetics and design
2. Deep knowledge of the tools we use: Linux, Python, Django, Javascript, CSS, and some Flash/ActionScript
3. Experience in configuration, scaling, and deployment for servers and databases.
4. Experience managing complex, dynamic systems (especially people)

We like effective people that can focus to get things done and make real things. We're building a culture which demands excellence. We understand that anything that lets you perform better is worth it: fully loaded Macs, enormous monitors, Aeron chairs, food, etc.

Apply by sending mail to founders@tipjoy.com

Make sure to tell us about something you've made that you are proud of. You can also try your hand at these puzzles:

Puzzle 1: explain python generator expressions in 140 characters or less and tweet the answer to @tipjoy
Puzzle 2: Concatenate the page source for each level of http://www.pythonchallenge.com/ and find the number of times the substring 'tipjoy' can be found via character removal.
Puzzle 3: Make up a puzzle which can be solved in less than 30 minutes which we're unable to solve. It must be possible for us to find the solution, and you need to know it.

Tipjoy is Hiring! Law student/Paralegal

Are you a law student or paralegal who is interested in the intersection of technology, finance and law?

Tipjoy is a new micropayments service that will revolutionize how payments are done online. We're strong supporters of free culture and currently support a voluntary payments model. We make it extremely easy for people to leave tips for stuff they love online. Rather than turning people away by gating content, Tipjoy allows people to choose to leave a tip for a content if they think it was valuable.

Tipjoy needs to prepare legal paperwork in order to be regulated as a Money Transfer Agent with the US government and all 50 states. This paperwork will enable Tipjoy to allow its users (even those outside the US) to withdraw cash from their accounts.

We are looking for someone with legal expertise who wants to learn more about the ins and outs of trying to start a new business in the financial space. This person will be expected to gather and complete all the necessary paperwork, as well as research precedence and recommend strategy in this area.

This could be anything from a paid summer internship to a full time position as one of the first hires in a growing, capitalized startup with strong ties to the startup community including the Y Combinator network. That all depends on you.

Paralegal experience and/or completion of your first year of law school is required. The greater your qualifications, the greater your potential to be very influential in shaping the future of Tipjoy.

If you are interested, please send your resume to us at: founders@tipjoy.com