VIDEO: rel="payment", a proposal

Pay Me
________________________

this above post is the future.
Now we need FireANT, Mefeedia, and other aggregators to support this new reality.
You'll simply see a button when you play my video in your aggregator and you will click on it to send me money. Whether you actually send me money is another story...

Here's the story:
Peter, Josh, Kenyatta and I had a marathon discussion tonight.
We were imagining what we could do to help videobloggers get more attention and even paid.
People are doing making great videos and should be rewarded.
At the same time, more and more people are watching videoblogs in aggregators like FireANT and Mefeedia. More and more bloggers are getting money from the "tip jar".
So how do we mix the two?

So what if we added a button in these aggregators that let people PAY the creator if they watch a cool video. You watch a video, you love it, and you click a button that sends you to a paypal page or whatever.

How to do this?
Peter had the brilliant idea for videobloggers to add rel="payment" in their blog entry...
Since this is an open protocol, any tool can use this info to connect viewer with the videoblogger to give money.

So the link would look like this:
<a href="http://www.dropcash.com/campaign/roygvib/momentshowing/" rel="payment">Pay Me</a>
I created a page at DropCash that will let you donate money to me.
rel="payment" is then thing that FireANT or Mefeedia can tell its a Payment button.

We were very excited because its so simple.
You are just sending someone to a URL...which could be anything:
a paypal account, a way to buy your DVD, a place to donate to "save the whales", a page that gives me your P.O.Box to mail a check.
It's up to you where you want someone to go to pay you.

If the videobloggers can adopt this feature, then we may have the kernel of sustainability.
What do you think?

Comments

[hilton Blackwell]

How about making this sign in thing go away? I have been waiting to see a video from you lately. I have missed you, peace
I got a Powerbook to play with;)

[cweagel]

I've missed you too, jayward.

[Jan]

Yeah.

'At's what we're talkin' about.

You fellows are soooo cute! And smart and opensource.

Dudes! Real men.

[ryanne]

what about people who make boring videos? are they unworthy of payment?
who is to judge? viewers i guess.
i'm seeing that it's simply a tip jar for an aggregator, that's cool.
then maybe everyone will ignore that tip jar too, just like the one bloggers post on their sites.

[Peter]

I put the story of yesterday on http://poorbuthappy.com/ease :) Rock!

[Markus Sandy]

This is great. I was just thinking yesterday that I would like to do an Apple Store demo of "how-to" press a paypal button on sites like ant, UAA, etc. But I was thinking, "I can do this, but I wish I had more to talk about". This is it!!! When will the first aggregator show support got this. Can it be done in such a way as to pay at the end of the video? Kind of like a street performer's hat passed around at the end and you give as you feel is appropriate. But it really needs to be there at the end when you deliver the finale (or better, through the entire movie). I have to watch this again and listen for details. Good show folks! This is so important.

[Max]

Great idea, one question though, who will send money?
I think most people who watch vlogs are vloggers/bloggers/podcasters them selves, and the rest are people checking out, lets say, vlogging, maybe for the first time and they will either decide its not for them, or to embrace it and most likely become vloggers. If we could receive payment for our vlogs (which would be fantastic, it could help subsidize or even pay for their internet connection or whatever) wouldn't it just be vlogger paying vlogger? Say, if you start donating to numerous vlogs you like, but then find you are not receiving any donations to your vlog, you will soon stop giving money.

Well, this is just my initial thoughts on this, maybe I am missing the more general issues.

[mariah]

great idea. im sure it will be fabulous for those with high readerships and those who create widely-used tools like fireant and mefeedia.

but i gots another question for ya: for those of us who post media created at mnn (im pretty sure this is just you and me at this point), dont we have an agreement with the station that we cannot accept any money for that content? does this mean that i have to stop posting/remove mnn stuff, in order to have a tip jar on the site? im not looking or expecting to make gobs of cash from the videoblog, but enough to cover the cost of minidvs would be a huge help.

[Dave]

Cool idea! Normally, my audience is likely to be my 2 brothers, a few buddies from Purdue, and a coworker or two ... and none of them are gonna pay me anything :-P ... but I'd still use this for the coolness of it. :-)

I think this has some serious power however to help us as vloggers start to do things we always talk about ... changing things! It would be great for a series of videos meant to accomplish something.

For example suppose all the vloggers had a 'cause week' where we picked a cause, had a donation page agreed to, and for a week (or month or whatever) made relavent vlogs with rel=payment for the cause. That's pretty freakin' cool.

It also gives us a means to sort of ... campaign. If you are a politcal advicate talking about your canidate of choice your rel=payment for that video could be to his campaign fund for example.

Cool ideas, Jay!

Thanks,
- Dave
http://www.davidmeade.com

[Chris Ritke]

Hi Jay - this is an awesome idea - I just implemented it in 49Media and it works - it's already showing for this post at www.49media.com/mediaid=789473

Check it out! And let me know if you think what it's saying in the link is ok... I think if it would just say 'Pay Me' people coming through 49media would think it's 49media that wants to get paid and not the author?

[paul]

Agreed, but right now the pay-systems cost too much.

How can I send you a check for 50 cents when the stamp costs 37 cents?

Credit Cards want too much, PayPay takes too much, we need a Metro-Card system.

[yourstruly]

Hi guys!!Thanks for the info..
Had two questions here:
-1You are gonna take me for some dummy but, how does this (atom?) feed thing actually works?
-2 Where can I get I of these" Bloggers" t-shirt?

Take care

[Richard]

Ok, in theory, this idea is really cool, and I'm looking forward to hearing more details and I'm sure I will on the Yahoo list ... one thing, is that I, personally, see the highest priority for you guys to get paid (as opposed to the people making the videos - all though that would be cool too) ...

[Tantek Çelik]

This is a great idea guys. Using the 'rel' attribute to indicate that the destination of the hyperlink represents a "place to make payment" for the current page or portion there of seems to fit quite well with the understanding of how the rel attribute is supposed to be used.

I strongly encourage you to propose your idea (and the syntax rel="payment") on the microformats-discuss list:

http://microformats.org/discuss/

You're sure to find a community of supportive folks that want to help nurture your idea and take it to the next level.

Thanks,

Tantek

[Cheryl Shuman]

I’m curious as to your position on “corporate sponsorship” for Vlogging. I’ve heard that many of the vloggers involved in the yahoo group are actually “paid to vlog”. Your comments?

Cheryl Shuman

[jay dedman]

anyone can do what they want.
whether or not ill watch it is a different story.
if coke is sponsoring someone's videoblog, and the video is about the lifestyle of coke...not interested.
if coke is funding independent artists to create cool videos....im in.

its funny to me that anyone would think that the Videoblogging group is adverse to money.
many of us are adult workers in the real world.
i think what people get confused about is that many of us are making sure people realize they can have an uncompromised voice.
you dont have to make money to videoblog.
this is not TV.
it can be...but its not the only model to follow.