A few weeks ago, we wrote about the impending launch of Contenture, a monetization network for sites built around micropayments. The idea is that while traditional online advertising models work for some sites, others are better suited for custom-tailored approaches — and that’s what Contenture can offer. Today, it has launched its service is giving TechCrunch readers a special deal.
If a website owner signs up with the promotional code “techcrunch,” they will receive double affiliate commissions for a full year. A pretty good deal considering that because the way the network works, it’s in your interest to have more site owners sign up. That’s because the larger the network is, the more likely it will be that users sign up for Contenture accounts. And the more that do, the more you’re likely to get paid.
Contenture users pay a minimum of $5.99 a month, but can offer to pay more if they choose. Site publishers keep 80% of the money coming in to Contenture, while it keeps the other 20%, which is a pretty solid deal compared to other monetization networks.
The core of the service is similar to the idea behind TipJoy. That is, users paying a small amount of money to a site owner. But Contenture goes further, allowing sites to switch to a full-on “freemium” model, giving them the option to toggle certain features on and off depending on if a user has paid.
But because it is based around a monthly-fee, we could be looking at a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Users may not want to sign up for the service because of the limited number of sites available — while sites not want to sign up because of the limited number of users. But Contenture has made it very simple for a site to install and use their service — it’s just a small snippet of JavaScript that can turn on or off features based on if a user visiting the site has a Contenture account.
This type of model is no doubt a gamble, but it’s an intriguing one. As I wrote about a few days ago, I have no problem paying a certain number of sites that I visit often and love. But those were all web services, and not necessarily content-oriented sites. The large web services are likely to want to run their own freemium models — like what Pandora is doing. Contenture would be perfect for content-oriented sites, but a lot of users have hang ups about paying for content on the web.
That’s not to say that won’t even change in some form, but today that’s a tough sell. Micropayments could be a key to unlocking such a model, but a monthly fee is a barrier to entry.
Disclosure: Contenture sponsored our CrunchCam for a few hours a couple weeks ago.
Indeed a tough sell for content pages. Key is to have sites with truly great content sign on early. Niche areas that usually have only crappy content to offer might be a good start in getting aficionados to micro pay for stuff they love.
I think you are right in that it could be come a chicken/egg thing. However, as a site owner I don’t think there is any downside to giving it a try. That said, its a lot easier for a site owners to say “ya, we’ll come first…no problem” because their is no financial risk.
I am looking to implement Contenture on 2 different sites. Why not, right?
Sure, no downside UNLESS you decide to put things behind the pay wall, then you run the risk of no one seeing whatever it is.
Sure, but that happens whenever you take something and place it behind a pay wall. You could also take your next round of features for your product, and make them open for Contenture users only. Contenture is really a dead simple freemium system, for anyone.
I’m thinking of just making my sites ad-free for users at first. Then I’ll look into adding Contenture only features.
Techgeist.net is going to go ad-free then implement a bunch of other contenture only features.
We are really excited about it
As a user, I say forget it.
$6/month is not a micro-payment.
3 mils is a micro-payment.
When someone creates a system that allows me to pay for content using mils, then I will sign up.
It is a micropayment when it’s divided up amongst hundreds of sites. The point of Contenture is that it’s fully automated. You don’t have to get hassled to authorize a 5 cent txn every time you want to view content. You pay a small monthly fee and we distribute the money automatically to all of the sites you visit.
Thanks for the write up guys
This time you nailed what the service is really about. Much appreciated!
Sean, can you explain this “double” commissions deal? I already signed up today (and not through TechCrunch) and since revenues are shared between sites, this sounds like to offer “special” signups more, you have set up a system where you can offer others less. Am I reading this wrong?
That’s just for affiliate commissions, which we pay out of our own pocket. It doesn’t affect how much a site earns directly from a particular user.
Hmmm.. for some reason I do not see the benefit of this. I have to pay money to visit sites? What kind of websites will I be surfing?
No, you don’t have to pay. The Freemium model is about giving everyone a lot of stuff for free, but giving a bit extra to paying users. That’s what Contenture does for a site owner, it gives them an easy way to make their site Freemium. It does not restrict you from accessing the site altogether.
but what if no one cares about freemium? whatever
umakeitcool allows you to have a website for free, put up stuff for free, and sell stuff for free. and it’s micropayment, meaning, things can be as cheap as say $0.56.
There are users who are so grateful to certain sites they use that they really want to help those sites out by paying small amounts everytime they visit it. But there is no easy way to do so. The user can’t take the pain of contacting the owner of each site and paypaling the small amount every time they visit his/her website. Now such users can sign up at contenture and request their fav to register as well (if it already isn’t). In return, the owner might choose to offer premium content for paying users. contenture, again, makes it very easy to do so.
Oh, so does it mean that I will need to pay for RSS content now?
no you don’t pay for content, per say (though you could with contenture) Instead you pay for the right to have the site be free of ads.
Do I have to be approved before I can put Contenture on my web site?
Nope! Unlike ad networks, there is no approval process. All you do is register your site and put the code on it and you’re done. However, we do reserve the right to disable any account if we feel it’s not appropriate for the service.
Sounds like an after the fact approval process to me.
It is a start. What’s the use of creating all these free site with no ROI on the horizon. Hosting, bandwidth, design, programming and time invested. Its not cheap. I like to see how all this works out. Intrigued…
Doesn’t make sense for me. Why would I want to share revenues with other websites? If some of my content is good enough to charge for it, I just charge for it.
Right, and how much time does that take you to integrate into your web site? The point of Contenture is how easy it is to put on your site. It takes about 1 minute to register an account and your site, and maybe 1-2 minutes more to put the code on your site. That’s 3 minutes of work. Could you really implement an entire pay-for-content system on your web site by yourself in 3 minutes? No. And that’s the point.
“But Contenture has made it very simple for a site to install and use their service — it’s just a small snippet of JavaScript that can turn on or off features based on if a user visiting the site has a Contenture account.”
Easy to sign up, but how secure is it? Considering JS is all client-side, would it be difficult to simply modify your page to display it anyway?
This is covered in detail in our help section.