Eighteen daily newspapers and 15 weekly newspapers have signed up for the Dutch micropayment app Blendle, Lara O’Reilly reported Tuesday for Business Insider.
That’s big news, not just for the two-year-old startup, but also for the wider digital publishing ecosystem. The success of a micropayments models depends on well-known publications signing up. (If just one publication in a particular market operates some form of paywall, readers will often look elsewhere to find free content.)
In a news release about the move, Blendle’s co-founder Alexander Klöpping wrote that the average cost per article is 20 cents, but prices are set by the publisher.
At Blendle users can browse newspapers and magazines for free, paying just for the articles they read. The users can also see which articles are trending, and which stories their friends or curators (such as celebrities, politicians and journalists) have shared. It’s possible to search for specific topics and set email alerts for them.
In October of last year, Joseph Lichterman reported for Nieman Lab that German publisher Axel Springer and The New York Times Company both invested in Blendle.
In April, Klöpping wrote for Medium about Blendle’s successful first year. Lessons included what people will and won’t pay for and why clickbait doesn’t work. He ended the piece noting plans to expand internationally.
We’ll see if Dutch people are just crazy, or if we’re really on to something with this micropayments model. Hopefully it will grow out to become a viable alternative for the models of the past. With less reliance on advertising. And more support for great journalism.
