Thursday, September 25, 2003

As some of VRlog's readers probably know, I've embarked on a grand experiment, by setting up a premium content section of my VirtualParks wilderness panoramics website and charging a small amount (from 15 cents to 49 cents) for people to view some of my best panoramas using a new micropayments system called BitPass. As far as I know, I'm the first to use micropayments to charge for viewing a single VR. Some people are sceptical that micropayments will ever work, citing any number of obstacles, including "people just won't pay for content on the web". So I thought it was interesting to run across this article on C|Net, "Consumers open wallets for paid content", which says that U.S. consumers spent $398 million for paid content on the Internet in Q1 of 2003. "This shows us that as the Internet matures, more people are becoming familiar and comfortable with paying for content," said Michael Zimbalist, executive director of OPA. "We know that the more time people spend online, the more open they become to making transactions." So is the "people will not pay for stuff on the Internet" myth dead? Will people pay for VRs? I've written a column on the subject which should be online in a few days. 6:06:38 AM

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