Thursday, August 20, 2009

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Tipjoy is shutting down.

You can still sign in and cash out funds. We've also made it easy to download all your transaction history. But all other functionality on the site is now turned off.

If you have a positive balance, you will soon receive a formal notification describing the shutdown process, which will include a reasonable deadline before which you will need to claim your funds.

If you have any questions about your account, send us email: help@tipjoy.com

We have decided against continuing to pursue additional funding. After a long and hard look at the market and the situation, we didn't feel it made sense.

When we evaluate why there's been so much hype about payments on Twitter, and yet so little traction for us (and even far less for our competitors) it is clear to us that the reason is that a 3rd party payment service doesn't add enough value. We strongly believe that social payments will work on a social network, provided that they're done within the platform and not as a 3rd party. "Simple, social payments" is *the* philosophy needed to do digital payments right, but once a service groks that, they need only to implement it on their own. We've been the thought leaders in this space, we see the hype and excitement, and yet we know very intimately the difficulties in gaining actual traction. The only way to get around this is for the platforms themselves to control payments - then all people wanting to operate on that platform would have to play along. We believe that a payments system directly and officially integrated into social networks such as Twitter and Facebook will be a huge success.

Thank you to everyone who has supported and helped us along the way.

If you have any questions, get in touch: help@tipjoy.com

Thanks,
Ivan & Abby - Team Tipjoy

34 Comments:

At August 20, 2009 at 9:57 PM , Blogger Rishi said...

good luck on your next thing :)

 
At August 20, 2009 at 10:06 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

Really sad to hear the news, guys. Wish you both the best in your future endeavors.

 
At August 20, 2009 at 11:07 PM , Blogger Dennis Yu said...

I'd be interested in buying the domain or renting links, whether as a payment or revshare.

What are your plans for the domain?

 
At August 20, 2009 at 11:58 PM , Blogger Ivan said...

We have to support those with active balances for some time before we can think about an asset sale.

Thanks for the well wishes guys :)

 
At August 21, 2009 at 12:03 AM , Blogger toivotuo said...

Sorry to hear Tipjoy go. We emailed around the time you guys just launched and I really liked the your service. Too bad we didn't have time to integrate Scred.com with your API (we had that on the extended roadmap).

Good luck on your next venture.

 
At August 21, 2009 at 1:13 AM , Blogger wlievens said...

Too bad it didn't work out. I believe micropayments are the future, but I guess you're right about platform integration there.

 
At August 21, 2009 at 5:36 AM , Blogger Tom Crowl said...

See Chagora (dot) com and CulturalEngineer.blogspot (dot) com (why chagora, live debate function and other related posts) for the role of the Pooled-User-Determined Account and the microtransaction as essential in politics and a catalyst for enabling the practical micro (and other)transaction in charity and commercial areas.
The political microtransaction is a fundamental of speech. I believe this could have made Tipjoy workable. Sorry I couldn't reach you.

 
At August 21, 2009 at 5:40 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

It is a great concept, I'm sorry to hear the timing is just not right. No doubt you'll bring this experience into creating something exciting in the future. Can't wait to see where you guys end up next. - Kelli

 
At August 21, 2009 at 5:52 AM , Blogger Nate Westheimer said...

Besides liking the heck out of you two, you know this was a service I really wanted to see work out.

You made a hell of a run at it and looked good doing it, though!

Can't wait to see how you crushit in the future. I know from personal experience that moving on is tough, but the future is super bright.

Best,
Nate

 
At August 21, 2009 at 6:27 AM , Blogger Benjamin Stein said...

Sorry to hear it, but good luck with what ever comes next! -Ben

 
At August 21, 2009 at 7:10 AM , Blogger Adolfo said...

Too bad, it was great to interview Ivan for my only 3rd episode of Nerd Stalker! See the memory here http://u.nu/5a9z Good luck on the next venture guys.

 
At August 21, 2009 at 8:05 AM , Blogger Vadhri said...

best wishes Ivan & Abby

srinivas vadhri

 
At August 21, 2009 at 10:10 AM , Blogger Ivan said...

Thanks for the well wishes everyone!

 
At August 21, 2009 at 10:18 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

It's sad to see Tipjoy go, but you guys do awesome things, and I'm excited about what's to come.

Go team! :)

 
At August 21, 2009 at 10:56 AM , Blogger Trevor said...

Ditto. Seems to me you had a good run and are choosing the right time to move on. The knowledge you gained in the past two years is priceless!

 
At August 21, 2009 at 11:15 AM , Blogger Averill Strasser said...

I really appreciate what you have done to move the ball forward, and your analysis as to what needs to happen from here. I hope people don't get the idea that microphilanthropy is dead. To the contrary, it is a concept whose time is coming.

 
At August 21, 2009 at 12:31 PM , Blogger Blogger is a Stinking Heap of Pig Dung said...

So, what is your next adventure?

 
At August 21, 2009 at 5:00 PM , Blogger indicavia said...

I'm sorry to hear this, I really liked this idea and service!

Would you consider open sourcing your code (I'd recommend the LGPL license), like http://tr.im recently announced that they will do, after they too had to close down shop? That would be a fantastic contribution to the community, and it could help the Twitter-like service Identi.ca, based on the Free/Open software Laconica, to implement micropayments, just like you say they should.

That would be fantastic!

 
At August 24, 2009 at 12:49 PM , Blogger Keith said...

I know you two will start something new and cool. We met at Boston Ignite when we were both launching our companies. Good Luck - Keith Erskine ~ Padpaw

 
At August 25, 2009 at 6:32 AM , Blogger arun said...

It's so sad to see you go. I wish you'll come back (just like tr.im did a few weeks back!).

Good Luck guys!

 
At August 25, 2009 at 9:52 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

I haven't heard the terms ”So long, and thanks for all the fish” & “groks” (Stranger In A Strange Land) in quite some time.

You are on the money (hmm) with your thinking and Facebook just proved you out with their announcement the other day saying they are trying out a platform whereby Corporate accounts may have to pay a fee!!!

There are many, many other sites that could use your software. I'm thinking internationally - Non-profits everywhere would love to be tipped.

There may be restaurants, bars (waitresses, waiters), cafes (servers, musicians) - to name a few, that would profit from (leasing?) your software?

Just some ideas - brainstorming. . .

J-NAWR
http://newamericanwriters.com/blogg

 
At September 6, 2009 at 5:20 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Здравствуй, Иван. Честно говоря, нифига не понял :) Какой охват у твоей системы микроплатежей? Или это вообще что-то другое?

 
At September 6, 2009 at 5:32 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ну вот, блин, в лучших традициях WEB-бюрократии. New account creation is disabled.
Если disabled, почему сразу не сказать? Заставлял меня вспоминать пароль от Твиттера. Грустная история.

 
At September 8, 2009 at 6:22 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

Well...you did get a mention today on BBC Radio 4. Unfortunately, it was from an out of touch digital "guru" (not) who outlined that you were taking the US by storm and you were a great business model to follow. You may get an influx of UK traffic.

Good luck for the future. Maybe you'd be interested in some dandyism?

 
At September 19, 2009 at 7:20 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At October 1, 2009 at 1:45 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At October 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM , Blogger AnnRan said...

Bummer. I was just about to mount a Twitter campaign for a local critter charity that's in dire need of funds when I discovered you were shutting down. But I appreciate all your hard work and know it wasn't an easy decision to make. Thanks for all the fish and the 2 cents (and the cute turtle too).

 
At October 24, 2009 at 8:14 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Best of luck with new ventures.

 
At November 20, 2009 at 3:40 PM , Blogger Roland Christopher Sarmiento said...

goodluck and thanks for sharing. :)

http://www.bristolairportparking.info

 
At January 25, 2010 at 11:27 PM , Blogger Term Papers said...

With the previous button we would frequently see users click the tipjoy button and then not notice that the email field appeared.
Term papers

 
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