All of Germany just signed up to this micropayment app that people think is the future of news on the web
(Blendle) The Blendle interface.
Blendle, the Dutch startup that allows users to pay small micropayments for individual newspaper and magazine articles rather than having to sign up to digital subscriptions, has just signed up all the major German national newspapers to its service.
Not just some of them — all of them. Eighteen dailies and 15 weeklies. The app now has an almost complete lock on national news in Germany.
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.)
Blendle CEO Marten Blankesteijn says in a news release: "The very best articles in the German language are published in print magazines and newspapers, or locked up behind paywalls. But many people don't have a subscription, so they are missing all these amazing stories."
Newspapers including Bild, Die Welt, National, and BZ have joined Blendle Germany, alongside weeklies and magazines including Gala, 11 Freunde, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Kicker.
Blendle users register and enter their credit-card details just once. The service creates a type of digital newsstand that serves a feed of stories about the topics users are interested in, trending stories, and those that have been curated by their friends or celebrities and public figures. When users click on a headline, the app or website takes a small payment, with revenue split roughly 30/70 between Blendle and the publisher. And if readers don't like an article, they can get an instant refund if they provide feedback on what wasn't to their liking.
The pricing is set by the individual publisher, but articles cost 20 cents each on average. Blendle tells us publishers will be adding its micropayments service on top of their existing digital paywall strategies, giving readers choice on which route to take.
The company, which was founded by two 28-year-old former journalists — Blankesteijn and Alexander Kl?pping — says it has attracted more than 300,000 users to date. It says Blendle has generated more revenue for Dutch publishers — where most of its users are based — than Apple.
(Blendle.) The Blendle team.
Back in March, The New York Times (which is also an investor in Blendle, alongside the German publisher Axel Springer), The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal signed up to experiment using the platform.
All signs are pointing toward Blendle's expansion. Kl?pping hinted in March that the company may be setting its sights on France next, though the company has a rule that it will officially launch in a country only when two-thirds of the country's publications have signed up.
Micropayments plus an Instant Refund option: https://t.co/S0fPFvn1jQ This is the first interesting micropayments idea I've seen in 15 years
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) June 2, 2015
With the ubiquity of free content online, publishers have been experimenting with different ways to make money from their online properties. Some, including the Financial Times and The New York Times, have gone down the paywall route. Others, including The Guardian and Mail Online, are sticking to advertising-funded free content.
Technology companies are also working with major publishers to make the content-consumption experience work better, load faster, and make more money through advertising revenue share deals.
On Monday, Apple introduced a News app that competes with the likes of Flipboard and claims to offer "the best mobile reading experience, ever." In May, Facebook partnered with nine major news publishers to launch Facebook Instant, a feature that allows the publishers to publish directly to Facebook's mobile app. And in April Google created a €150 million fund for journalism in Europe, partnering with eight European publishers to invest in training and research.
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