News Archive

Billing the Unbillable

02 November 2009

Newspapers, magazines and TV are still seeing circulations and audiences tumble and ad revenues fall as their clients go online ( ironically trying to advertise to the people on Facebook, You Tube et al who seem to be ignoring the ads ), or simply won’t shell out for such untargeted marketing in this highly focussed long tail content sector.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch wants to reverse the trend for freely giving away all his hard produced content online and advertisers want to keep people watching their ads and get a return. The owners of tubes and UGC sites want to be able to monetise their content. And TV companies want to keep people watching. All-in-all a perfect economic storm of media groups and brands that want to make money and consumers who refuse to pay.

One school of thought is that making things really cheap – the ultimate in microbilling – may well be the answer.

“People are willing to pay for quality content,” says Kevin Swayne, Chairman of Charge2, which provides a platform for the management of a universal online and mobile micro-billing solution called Coinz, that can be used to monetize online content and premium rate services. “They are just sensitive to the prices they are prepared to pay and the current billing models offered hurt those sensitivities.”

Providing an easily integrated Pay-As-You-Go, Micro-billing solution, Coinz facilitates “The Billing of the Unbillable” by enabling content owners and/or distributers to allow users to make small micro-payments for access to online properties and services. It also encourages customer loyalty, rewards content contribution via dynamic royalty payments and provides advertising incentives to Coinz account holders.

Swayne says Charge2 is in negotiations with up to 15 publishers, including national newspapers, to adopt the Coinz platform as a solution to their micro-billing issues. “This idea came from talking to people and identifying the sensitivities they have regarding charging their customers. They know they’ve got to charge and educate their users to pay but they don’t know how to do it. With Coinz they have the option to make it into a loyalty program which makes it seem like the user is getting more value in return for paying small amounts to consume content,” he told AIME.

Coinz is being used to give users and businesses trading in the media and publishing sector a viable solution, not just to take payments, but also to inspire user loyalty and dynamically manage content royalties. Coinz are acquired in a similar way to normal Stored Value Accounts ( SVAs ) but Publishers now have the ability to grant Free Loyalty Coinz to regular website visitors on a monthly basis or as part of special one-off promotional offers. When combined with the ability for Content Contributers to earn Royalty Coinz, tied to dynamic content views, Coinz provides an important tool for the generation of revenue in sectors that have traditionally proved difficult to monetise.

A user is able to charge up their Coinz account using Charge2’s inherent micro-billing mechanisms such as credit and debit cards and mobile phones and is then able to
exchange Coinz for premium content, news articles on websites or interactive services via a simple one-click process. A company merchant account, provided as part of the
solution, then tracks all Coinz spent on any associated websites. These Coinz can then be redeemed for money by the Publisher in-line with a standard exchange mechanism.

Coinz can easily be integrated into a website through 4 different models depending on the level of security required. Users, Merchants and Content Contributers are able to manage their respective commercial relationships via a single online portal. The solution allows users to spend Coinz easily across Coinz affiliated sites.

A publisher is given the ability to attribute a Coinz value to any aspects of their online portfolios, be this images, videos, information or interactive services. Each time a user spends Coinz on an affilated site, the corresponding number of Coinz is deducted from a users Coinz account. Through Coinz, Merchants are able to reward regular visitors to their website by issuing Loyalty Coinz on a frequency of their choice. A Merchant may also choose to issue Loyalty Coinz in return for a user setting up a Coinz Wallet via their website. The Merchant is therefore effectively providing a user with limited free access to content or services to entice them to re-visit their website and make repeat purchases. A Merchant may issue batches of Loyalty Coinz via the online Merchant Administration Area and allocate them to users as and when required. Royalty Coinz ensure that Content Contributors are paid in line with revenue share models that are tied dynamically to content viewings. This provides an independent back-office system that ensures contributors earn money by cashing in the Coinz earned using the redemption system.

Content contributers are able to see how many times their respective content has been accessed in real-time and are paid directly via the Coinz portal. This dramatically reduces expensive back-office administration and month-end workloads.

Coinz can easily be used alongside existing payment options if required. Coinz is also being used to facilitate next generation online advertising models by recording user profiles and spending patterns to ensure that advertising response and promotional campaigns are more interactive and therefore effective. Rewarding users for viewing advertisements, encourage direct feed-back and perhaps ordering samples in exchange for Coinz, all ensure that the message gets through in a more targeted way. It also provides a viable option for companies working in the new-media and publishing sectors to generate revenue from a new generation of pay-as-you-go “Micro-Consumers” intended to replace revenues lost as a result of falling circulation and advertising revenues – benefiting online media-rich business models across the board.