[birger]

I'm one of the 'didn't pay for newspapers before' and right now spend a couple of euro's a month on Blendle.

Articles cost between € 0,10, and € 0,50. If you buy so much articles from one paper / magazine that it is cheaper to get the whole edition, you get the whole edition. Refund work perfect. You don't like the article -> click -> money back. No questions asked.

[michaelchisari]

You don't like the article -> click -> money back. No questions asked.

That right there might be the most revolutionary part of their approach to online micro payments. You could apply it to so much.

[JeanMertz]

It's also something we are very proud of.

It turns out, if you give people the opportunity to read in an elegant and easy way, and provide articles written by great journalists, the refund ratio stays very low (avarage of 5%).

Of course, the flip side of that (as the article mentions) is that click-baity articles tend to get a high refund ratio (sometimes up to 50%). But such a "negative" result might actually be a net-positive for journalism in general.

[kriro]

This data is also extremly valuable for journalists. I can envision someone becoming a better journalist by optimizing for lower refunds. A good journalist will use this as a weapon. Quite often you can't really be sure about the quality of your piece. Now you have an interesting data point.

[the_ed]

Indeed.

If Blendle continues to be successful this could get very interesting though. As described in the article linked here, it's a great metric. And their publishers will also start to use their metric. So -while they now describe the Blendle-revenue as an extra- this will actually change the way we deal with the 'print' data which is now accessible online, creating a new dynamic. This will surely have an impact on the print version of these magazines as well, I can imagine, making Blendle a content driver(shaper?) and not 'just' a source of 'extra revenue' as they tend to see it now.

If it all takes off impact will, imho, be different than we can probably predict now, even though we can make some estimates of possible directions. Some people will be happier with the results after -say- five years than others. Time will tell.

[michaelchisari]

What's your editorial policy? Did you seek out magazines and authors and content creators to keep a tight ship, or is it open to anyone?

[JeanMertz]

We don't have an active editorial policy as far as I know, but we are limited by resources. It can take a lot of time and attention to "birth" new providers (as we like to call it internally). We pay a lot of attention to detail and want to make sure articles look the best they can in Blendle, keeping the authentic feel of the newspaper's/magazine's brand as much as possible.

In the beginning, we obviously had to actively seek out publishers. Marten and Alexander (our founders) spend a lot of time convincing publishers to come onboard.

As you can imagine, the deal we signed with The New York Times and Axel Springer gave us more "street creds" and made it easier to communicate with new publishers.

Still though, it's a large world out there, with a lot of publishers, each with their own wishes and doubts, so Alexander and Marten still have to convince them, just on a much larger scale now.

[bigiain]

Didn't Zappos work that out ~15 years ago? 365 day no questions asked return policy and reputation for fabulous customer service seems to be what grew them to a $1 billion+ Amazon acquisition in 10 years...

[the_ed]

I figure the thing is with Blendle, as with most paywallsystems, is that they actually turn 'micropayments' into larger payments. ie: you don't want to do a bank-transaction every time you hit a paywallbutton, so they make you pay a larger sum and give you credits. (Like other paywall might provide you with a subscription.)

The extra smart thing here being, of course being twofold: First of all, they provide you this service for a myriad of outlets. (Thus limiting the actual transactions (such a hassle!) with your bank even more. And second: they provide a service for newspapers to publicise their print content online.

As far as I'm concerned, the core thing they made is a way of transferring all these 'print' articles to online. A benefit for publishers. This is now slowly shifting towards the 'one stop paywall' core business. One probably couldn't start without the other, but in the end we'll have a completely new thing. (Which I've described in several rants in Dutch.. yadieyada... stuff.)

I tend to pay more for articles these these, although for full disclosure I'd have to say that I work for a media outlet. (And yes' we're in Blendle, and we're not even print! ;) )