Bitcoin Micropayments Get Big Moment as Chicago Sun-Times Paywall Experiment Goes Live
Readers who visit the Chicago Sun-Times today will notice something they aren't likely to have seen before: a bitcoin paywall separating them from their content. The Chicago Sun-Times is the ninth-largest newspaper in the United States, and the first major US publication to trial a bitcoin paywall. Instead of paying for a subscription, as patrons of the The Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times do, Chicago Sun-Times readers who visit the site on 1st February will be asked to donate bitcoin payments to the Taproot Foundation, or tweet about the nonprofit, in order to read articles. The....
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Bitcoin paywall provider BitWall is partnering with the Chicago Sun-Times to conduct a 24-hour bitcoin paywall test. The experiment, the first of its kind for a major US publication, will happen on the Sun-Times website on 1st February. Readers accessing articles during this time will see an overlay "wall" before accessing an article. They will be given the option to pay to see the article with bitcoin, or to tweet the story for access. "We continue to experiment and test new technologies that we believe engage our readers and look forward to being the first major USA newspaper to test a....
As planned, the Chicago Sun-Times has put in place a paywall, as originally reported in January. The paywall, which isn't much of a paywall at all, to be honest, is a 24-hour testing trial that allows users to donate bitcoin to the Taproot Foundation. Users are able to "donate" a tweet or donate bitcoins in the amount of their choosing. But a donation is not required to view Sun-Times content, at this time. San Francisco-based bitcoin paywall company BitWall is behind this, and the Sun-Times has become the start-up's biggest client thus far. The trial is designed to provide both the....
On 3rd February, the Chicago Sun-Times, in partnership with BitWall, launched an experiment to see if people were willing to pay small amounts of bitcoin for articles over a 24-hour period. This was done in the via the startup's bitcoin microtransaction paywall at which people were asked to donate coin in order to read content, as reported here. There was a social media alternative as well, which allowed readers to tweet stories instead of paying, or even leave the site altogether by clicking 'no thanks'. The Chicago Sun-Times BitWall paywall. The test run saw a total of 713 visitors....
The Chicago Sun-Times tests bitcoin payment. Despite bitcoin's minimal fees making it a natural choice for micro-payments, many pay-per-use business models have been slow to integrate bitcoin payment options. Arcades, adult websites, news outlets with an online presence, all could save millions of dollars a year in payment processing fees by collecting micropayments of bitcoin. Even though amateur adult entertainers have been accepting bitcoin for over two years, Porn.com only began accepting it for subscriptions last month, but others took notice quickly when the adult website was....
On 7th January, the temperature in Chicago was -4 degrees Farenheit (that's -20 degrees Celsius). That evening, a Tuesday, nearly 40 people ventured out in to the Arctic conditions and gathered at the Atlas Brewing Company for beer and food. The reason? Bitcoin. In a city with a population of 2.7 million, 40 people at a bitcoin meetup is clearly a drop in the ocean. But bitcoin's Chicago cheerleaders say it's a sign of a dedicated community, one they say is growing. What's more, they argue, the city is ripe to host a flourishing bitcoin economy. Experimenting with bitcoin. At the end of....