Ideas

Oh and 3 cents per tip ... 3 dollars per tip ... whatever works.

I like it.
My mouse slipped and I click the tip button.
What now?

Before any payment is made, a chance to review tips is given. This is to catch mistakes, but also detect if anyone is attempting to defraud the system. Given that it is 3 cent tips totalling $10, that's 333 tips to review. A summary would probably list URLs, then offer date breakdown, since I expect most people will tip the same domains repeatedly.

For developing around the user experience, lots of attention will have to be paid to how we keep a tipper once they've reached the $10 threshold. "Look here's all the tips you promised!" "Here's where your $10 will be directed!"

Won't the cost of transefing the 3 cents to website x cost more than 3 cents ? How will that work?

I like it, but 2 cents would be better than three cents, just for marketing ideas.

It's like NPR or public television.

I'm not sure how to address "overhead costs". Certainly the collection of funds will eat up at least 5%, if we track small amounts then internal processing costs (1 URL hit per 3c tip) are relatively high. But so long as they don't cross 33% we can then direct 2c to target site, remaining 1c covers costs and remaining used to seed "pyramid" aspect.

I think the biggest problem is how not to mislead participants. "Tip 3 Cents" or "Tip 2 Cents" reads very clear, but what I'd like to say is "Pay 3 cents, 2 of which will reach target site"... how can one communicate that? I mean charities take crazy overhead all the time, they don't state overhead costs when asking for donations, but I suppose they themselves are the target so "overhead" is encompassed by by the tip.

Maybe keep the button text simple "Tip 3 Cents" (or 2 cents, that does sound catchier), and the elaboration need only occur when contact details are collected (once $10 in tips is reached).

Sorry Gordon, but after extensive thought during and since you were gathering information in the forums about this idea, my conclusion is that i don't think it will fly for several reasons:

Overheads will be too high for tip value envisaged but anything higher will result in a 'no tip ethic'... catch 22.

Visitors may click the tip button because it is small change and it is easy and quick to do but when it comes to actually paying, reconciling tips and entering payment details, i think you will have a huge dropout of real payment completions. This low completion factor will boost your overhead costs still further.

The fact that you cannot prevent people that don't honor their tips from continuing to view the websites or clicking the tip button, will actively invite the 'play' mindsets and skew the results and rankings in the process and add to your overheads.

The incentive to tip in the pyramid scheme is not attractive enough to maintain active support of this model but higher incentives mean higher tip values... catch 22 again.

Also with a pyramid scheme, how much value would a visitor attribute to a site's ranking when they take the view that there is monetary gain in the ranking process.

I do not see a win win situation in this model... i don't see a website making anything worthwhile (money or ranking value), i don't see a tipper in the pyramid making anything worthwhile for them to actively drive it and i don't see the 'house' making anything worthwhile either.

As i see it the gamers won't lose because they just won't pay up and i see the house losing all the time because the bets are never on the table.

Gord, why would I want to tip?

Why a tip why not a donation to a charity or a political party etc