tibit

Idea

Introduction

tibit enables anyone with a website, at any scale to collect micropayments and/or microdonations ('tibs') from their users. This includes news publishers, charities, clubs, bloggers, or musicians; we believe the list of applications for tibit is truly endless. tibit users ('tibbers') can send tibs as gratuities for content they appreciate, or as access payments.

tibbers pre-set a personal tib-value within a range, and purchase tibs in bundles of 10 or more. Every transaction is for exactly one tib. tibbers set a value high enough to be a useful donation; but since they are also used as payments, tibbers set a value low enough to be spent without a second thought. The burdens of cost-evaluation and fairness-judging are avoided at the moment-of-deciding whether to make a specific payment; it becomes a near-instant binary choice.

The value of each individual tib is not revealed to the 'tibbee', forcing them to treat every tibber equally.

Intended impact

'The Micropayments Problem' is intransigent. We believe that the Internet has failed for two decades to produce a funding method that scales to the highly granular way that content and many services are now delivered.

➤ tibit provides a viable solution for both publishers and consumers.

Contemporaneous attempts to obtain payment for online published goods and services often have a very visible and negative effect on the relationship between publisher and consumer. Examples of this include advertising swamp, clickbait headlines, and attempts to recruit subscribers by completely blocking access to the very content the user most appreciates, whilst they are only part way through it.

➤ tibit re-establishes a method of casual paid consumption providing a natural bridge to subscription models.

We have found that micropayments have worked where there is a captive market, such as in-game, and there are some examples of 'micropatronage'; but we have yet to see a viable solution to the general problem.

➤ tibit goes some way to addressing Walter Issacson's plea that: "journalists ... again be beholden mainly to their readers, rather than catering increasingly to advertisers or other agendas".

 
The potential impact of a viable, widespread, casual, and multi-purpose microdonation and micropayment solution is apparent everywhere where content and services are either unavailable without a subscription, or reduced to being no more than a mechanism to bring eyeballs to advertisements.

Some compare micropayments to busking income, and for many this will be true. However unlike street busking, creative goods like music or photography can collect pocket change online continuously. Non-professional bloggers can raise funds to cover their operating costs, or even do so in support of a favoured charity.

We believe the range of use cases, and consequent disruptive impact, are wide and far reaching.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We have spent money re-branding 'tibdit' to 'tibit'. The website has a different look-and-feel that is more professional, contemporary, and attractive, and better explains what we do (this was a common theme before the new website).

We have begun in earnest using social media to gain traction, specifically targeted to people within our initial sectors.

With a small sales team we have begun signing up 'halo'-tibbees, including several major charities, our first free software (Notepad++) provider, and these will continue over the next few months.

By mid-January; in what may be a first in the UK, we expect a major UK bank to have approved bank accounts for tibit specifically authorised for the bitcoin purchase transactions we require to pay out tibs to tibbees.

We have filed a non-provisional method-of-business patent application in the US covering the core inventive aspects of our solution.

Monetisation strategy

tibit collects 2p per tib paid. The space is inherently a volume business, and we anticipate requiring substantial volume to break even.

We believe that tibit's solution naturally includes a powerful incentive-driving viral loop or virtuous circle. However, like a two-stroke engine, a significant amount of initial effort is required to get it running. Except for loyal fans of tibbable sites, we anticipate that only once potential tibbers encounter tib buttons on more than a single site will most consider getting a tibit account, and purchasing a bundle of tibs.

The immediate focus is therefore on marketing and getting early-adopter tibbees on board, including promotions and giveaways, event attendance, and reaching out directly to smaller potential tibbee organisations such as local and specialist print-publishers.
 
Enhancements recently developed, and ready for deployment include:

Social media integration for tibbers. While tibit will automatically send tweets like "someone just tibbed something.com/article", the impact of an actual person announcing that they have parted with a payment (however small) for something online we believe is much greater than a 'thumbs-up' or an "I liked this" status update.

tib-value going to third parties. This feature supports both charitable giving by tibbees (for example: 'If you like my article, please tib; all tibs collected are donated directly to the Internet Argument Resolution Society'.) and also a reverse-affiliate scheme, where a 3rd party collects tibs on behalf of a community of tibbees they support, and deducts a percentage before forwarding the received amount. This may include converting the receipts back to local currency and depositing directly into tibbees bank accounts.

Use of proceeds

Key items of expenditure include:

Social media / PR : continue our social media effort (since November 2015), and PR

Sales : continue pushing for halo tibbee sign-ups (since October 2015), we are seeing good traction, and will announce in the press during January or February 2016

Continue 'basic' costs like office rental, paying developers, etc.