Social micro-payments enabler Tipjoy is releasing an API today that allows charities but also companies and individuals to handle relatively small payments from within their applications and spread the word through Twitter. This opens up a lot of opportunities for application developers who might 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.
Making a payment involves posting a tweet under these formatting rules, e.g. ‘p $2 @robinwauters’ (thanks!). After posting, Tipjoy will record the transaction by using the Twitter search & REST APIs. Note that this is an asynchronous process, not immediate, although real-time transactions are also possible. For more information about how it works along with some examples, go here.
For now, this only works directly through Tipjoy accounts and PayPal, although the company is working on additional support for credit cards and checking accounts. Also worth noting is that transactions are currently only available in USD although other currencies are said to be on the way.
In any case, it’s a far more robust solution for micro-payments through Twitter than its competitor Tipit, which merely uses Twitter as a sort of relay between PayPayl account holders and the person or company on the receiving end.
The company, which was originally seed-funded by Y Combinator and went on to raise $1 million in Series A financing in September 2008, is currently running a contest for developers who use the API for their application, and is giving away some free schwag and one Macbook Air for the winner. Check it out here.
The startup will be posting ideas for applications on this blog and their own Twitter account, but we’d be happy to learn what you can come up with, too.
Old news!
TipJoy says it well:
“Because Twitter is a broadcast platform, these payments are social. That’s very valuable. A microgiving cause gets the benefit of all the user’s followers seeing the payment. A premium twitter app paid using Tipjoy gets a free advertisement on Twitter. It’s not an orchestrated “social media marketing” effort – it’s real people actually using your service.”
This could be HUGE for the small developer in his apartment to even the large non-profits with bigger brands.
Follow me now @ http://twitter.com/IanMikutel
This is an interesting space, I’ve been keeping track of it ever since Twitpay.me launched and then recently got funding. It’ll be appealing to see how Tipjoy gets past the first mover in the market.
There’s a new service called Twollars http://twollars.com/
Interesting. This opens up some ideas with respect to a few of my own projects…
I used it on my blog and did an indepth feature investigation here: http://2above.c...-new-tipjoycom/
Still the biggest problem with TipJoy is that anyone can ’send’ money to anyone else but the actual ’sending’ of money isn’t really ’sending’. Unless they have changed this. What I mean is that one of my sites has ‘received’ about $12 in tips, yet I haven’t received any of it. Are the tips virtual? Is it a 2 step process: say you are sending a tip, and then actually give a tip? The process to me isn’t very clear.
One part of the API is real-time transaction data extraction, so you can grant access to content or services only once the payment is fulfilled.
http://tipjoy.c...ransaction_show
http://tipjoy.c...twitter_payment
Hmm. I’m going to have to implement this and see what happens with fundraising for the foundation.
Good move for tipjoy…
even better news for those seeking additional means to raise $$.
check out the simplest possible Twitter client. If you use Internet Explorer you may want to try TweetIE, the twitter add-on for IE that helps you post quotes from the websites you visit to your twitter account http://tweetie....udberrylab.com/ FireFox plug-in is also available.
Twitpay (http://twitpay.me) has been doing this for a while now, and uses Amazon Payments instead of PayPal (which I think is a plus). I’m sure a lot of companies will jump in this space to compete with Twitpay and TipJoy.
TipJoy.com is shutting down, as of Today it seems.
RATS!!!!!
Arin