Paying for VRs one view at a time
Looking at the VirtualParks logs, I see that starting in May, I am
now serving up over a gigabyte of VRs to the world every single day.
That's a lot of bandwidth. At some point the cost of providing
ever-increasing bandwidth for VR (and all the other costs associated
with the site) are going to become prohibitive for a site which has
no subscriptions, ads, or corporate sponsorships.
I've looked at a number of options, and I believe micropayments are a
key element of sustaining small artists.
How does free content ever work for small artists? Many people like
to quote how the Grateful Dead allowed underground taping as a viral
marketing tool. That may work for groups with dedicated fanbases and
an established retail presence, but when you are unknown and
unpublished, one free recording is not going to suddenly spark a
tidal wave of sales of a product with no shelf space anywhere. In
fact, Scott Highton's words might be more relevant: if you price your
photographic services/goods at zero as some kind of loss-leader, you
will succeed in establishing the perception that your stuff is worth
zero.
The field of micropayments has been somewhat dormant for a few
years. Recently some new companies have introduced fresh approaches
to micropayment systems. The following articles talk about BitPass, a traditional Silicon Valley startup (two Stanford doctoral candidates, with backing from Garage.com's Guy Kawasaki).
Striving for an
Internet Fortune, a cent at a time originally from the NY Times
(full text of article now in IHT).
"Making
the Web Pay" from the Guardian
Micropayment
company sees macro potential from Silicon Valley Biz Ink.
I looked at all the systems and liked BitPass the best because it is as easy to use as PayPal, requires no software downloads for the user, and doesn't charge too much per transaction (imho).
So I signed up as a seller with BitPass and started setting up
micropayment goods using their web forms. It's very easy to add an item for sale. You can control how many views/downloads people get of an item, as well as how long a time period they get to access it for. One thing that struck me right away was that to put a large number of items up for sale calls for a programmatic interface (or API); presently you have to type in the details for each item by hand. I let BitPass know about that and other concerns I had. They seem very responsive.
To sell using their system, you need to install some software
called a gateway script on your webserver. Because webservers don't all have the same software installed, you can choose between different forms of the gateway script: CGI script, PHP script, ASP.NET module, or Apache mod_perl module. So if you are hosting VRs on an ISP with a minimal service plan, you might need to bump up a level to get the ability to install a CGI, and get an SSL certificate (not required, but I recommend it).
So then I created a premium content section of VirtualParks.org.
Today it has a small sampling of new content from my panoramic
photography and maps. It's listed on VirtualParks homepage, or go to
the premium content
section directly.
There is very little precedent in terms of setting pricing for
viewing a single panorama. So I put a 'stake in the ground' and set a viewing price of a quarter, or 49 cents for a full-screen view. I will adjust these based on the results and/or feedback.
Interestingly enough, one of the attributes of using BitPass is relative anonymity compared to a direct credit card or in-person sale. Sellers such as myself do not recieve a list of email addresses or names associated with the sales. Of course one can look at the webserver logs and see the IP addresses that downloaded premium content that day, but that wouldn't necessarily be tied to a specific purchase--it could be a previous buyer re-downloading an item.
A few notes:
There is a browser warning which comes up after you pay for viewing
an item but before it gets delivered. That happens because the authorization activity takes place with BitPass's servers using https (SSL) and when it is all done authorizing and charging your BitPass account, then your browser is directed to my site to actually fetch the VR or other digital item, and my site doesn't use SSL (yet), so the browser warns you about this shift. I'm working on eliminating that.
Is it better to deliver premium content in a new window, or keep it
in the window you were in? Presently all the VRs open in the existing browser window. Things like wallpaper open in new windows. Let me know which works better.
I need to refine how full screen VRs get delivered. There is no
warning (besides the large filesize) that it may take awhile to
download and view them, and there needs to be info on how to get out of the QuickTime player.
Footnote: While early adopter Scott McCloud owns a small financial stake in BitPass, I don't.
6:59:46 AM 
|
