Kachingle?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003940234

Interesting idea, might actually work.

To sum up for the reading impaired. Company offers software that would give visitors the ability to donate to their favorite sites. The software would break down your monthly contribution by how often you visit sites that use the software.
So if you gave 100 bucks a year and you went to SportsJournalists.com 60 percent of the time, moddy and company would get 60 of your bucks and some fraction would be pulled out to pay the software company.
The model is basically volunteer pay, similar to NPR.

 

Donate = Free. This won't work. People won't pay if they don't have to. That's now the human nature of the "entitled" internet generation.

Again, what I don't get is this: There is NO PRODUCT ANYWHERE that is completely free. So why should news be free? A story is still a product. So is a slide show, a video, a blog.

The deeper I get into this article, the dumber it is.

 

People pay for NPR. They pay for PBS.
Those products are free, and you don't have to pay for them and people still do.
It isn't entirely unheard of.
If you package it with some extra, say free iTunes downloads or some such thing, people would consider it.

 

Sorry. But if you don't think your product is worth something, then I don't either. Bottom line.

And NPR and PBS started out that way didn't they?

They didn't up and decide to be a charity case one day.

 

I like PBS for its kiddy shows. When I was a nanny, that was usually the only channel I'd ever put the TV on. Even then, there were only a couple of shows we had time for, because I kept the kids busy all day with projects and outings. It was always a nice compliment to those hour after breakfast sleepies the kids would get.