Jo introduced me to Flattr. The idea is simple: each month you put an amount of money in your Flattr account. Throughout the month, you can ‘Flattr’ webpages. At the end of the month, the money in your Flattr account is divided up between all the pages that you’ve Flattred. It’s a simple way to reward sites that you feel deserve rewarding. It’s a way to support your favourite bloggers or admins. It’s an alternative to watching the Internet drown under advertising.
The only downside is that you can only Flattr sites which have signed up. I signed up because I think the idea is fantastic and want to see it spread as far as possible.
So, if you’re wondering what this button was all about, then now you know! Sign up to Flattr, and click on it to Flattr a particular article. Or, if you have the Firefox extension installed, you can Flattr the site.
The whole concept just seemed like a worthwhile way to support sites that I value. Now they just need to sign up for it…
I’m having similar problems. Some sites have caught on but there are a number of comic artists who I’d love to be able to tip (because I’m too cheap to buy the books or donate through paypal) who haven’t. And then there are the people I’ve flattred through their twitter accounts, only for it to be ignored. *sigh*
Of course, this is the big problem with all social networks: they’re only as useful as the number of people using them. It’s an interesting quirk of the developing marketplace for them, and very easily leads to unassailable monopolies (hello, Facebook!). My mind’s been turning it over for a solution, but none has presented itself. If it does, then all I need is a programmer and I’ll be rich!
@foxie299 “Pending” flattrs can be given to some unregistered things on eg. Twitter, when owners claims them they convert to real flattrs
I didn’t know that about Twitter… thanks for telling me! It’s better than just being frustrated, I’m sure