tipping..

Today, we released tipmyapp.com, something we believe is truly disruptive. Facebook developers can embed 2 line code which will put the “tip” button on their app… a small and simple and unobtrusive invitation to your users to click. That results in user shown a confirmation window within facebook. When user clicks “Confirm”, we record the facebook userid and contact him/her at a later time to finish the transaction. User is taken back to your app where he came from. that’s it.

The execution is definitely something we feel very proud of. And we believe many many apps will adopt this because tipping is totally voluntary. Even if the app doesnt have a lot of users, there will be definitely some fans who appreciate the hard work of the developer and think it worth to tip the app every so often..

as always, feedback appreciated.. here’s the link to get the tip jar for your app. enjoy!!

micropayments for social gaming (case study: social gears)

Convergence of social gaming within social networks is one of my favorite topics of discussion. I always thought that was a natural emerging trend and it has started to happen already in a big way. Social Gears is one of the promising startups in this domain and they already have a myriad of gaming applications on top of social networks.

I first met Mark Wayman, founder of social gears in one of those conferences and we connected immediately. A few weeks back I sent him a proposal to include SocialMints into their games. Mark responded almost instantaneously with emphatic yes. Once again, it seemed he knew what were we upto and we didn’t need to explain him much.

The value proposition is simple. The pace of change within the application space is out of control. That keeps the developers totally occupied with tuning their apps, adding content and distributing to social platforms. That leaves little time to think about additional monetization opportunities (I call them the lost dollars). And if the monetization methodology involves instrumenting the code to handle payment transactions and paypal integration, the idea is instantly put into low priority list which is then rarely revisited.

Typically almost all apps today employ incentives for users to sweat and acquire sweat currency for premium content, locked content, gifts, multiple levels or other means of expression or engagement. That is essential for the fist acquisition stage for any app (read Dave’s post on AAARRR model). After the hockey curve when developers start thinking about revenue, one of the options they can employ is to plug in Social Mints and offer users a way to include micropayments transaction system within their apps for users who do not have nor intent to sweat for premium content or that tempting next level. Everyone wins, the developer, the users and SocialMints.

In this case, Mark chose “King of Vegas” app where he wanted to start using SocialMints. The app has multiple games and user needs to acquire chips to be able to unlock the premium games. As the complexity of games increase, more chips you require. It was a perfect fit for SocialMints.

Special thanks goes to Jeff Roberts, architect at Social Gears. SocialMints uses client libraries which developer needs to embed within their app and then invoke those library classes from within their code. We didn’t had libraries in .NET yet. Jeff saw our PHP libraries, said it looks pretty straightforward and not only developed those .NET libraries within a couple of hours but graciously agreed to give it to us for distribution to other .NET developers.
So much so I would like to say thats how developer friendly our code is, but to take 3rdparty code and produce a working .NET version of the code within a few hours is very commendable. Thank you Jeff. Hope your app gathers a lot of mints.

providing shovels to the 49ers of social networks

Its feels wonderful. Since the launch of Social Mints at Bay Area Facebook Developers Meetup last week, I have probably talked to 20 develpers, analysts, business development folks explaining SocialMints and asking them if they have felt the need for something like this. The response have been overwhelming. It feels good to provide shovels to the fb 49ers.

To recapitulate, SocialMints to the end users is social currency they own and use it to make one click secure payment within the social network. They do not want to go through extensive checkout process everytime they have to buy 50 cent virtual asset.

To the developers, it is an embeddable currency and transaction systems across the multitude of applications (widgets) that are expected to continue their explosion on facebook, bebo, myspace, orkut, hi5, friendster and others.

Its a win win win proposition for developers, users and us. Left alone, developers will spend a month tuning the paypal integration (believe me, what you have heard is true, paypal is not merchant friendly) and still pay 33% on a dollar transaction. With us, they pay 8% on a dollar transaction and spend an hour in integration. thats it.

Users do not have to go through extensive checkout process. Imagine one click pay. and they can use mints to get access to stuff they would otherwise have to invite hundreds of friends or gather laboriously.

If its good for users, and its good for developers, its good for us. remember, we are providing the shovels to the 49ers of social networks.

SocialMints, your new social currency is here!

We launched SocialMints, a micro payment system for Facebook last nite at the Bay Area Facebook Developers Meetup.

With SocialMints, any Facebook Developer can now monetize their Apps witg just 10 min work calling SocialMints API.

Facebook users are fatigued with forced viral invites to gain points. Now you can offer them $1 purchase options or less to buy points, extra features, pet food, feed a fish, or unlock premium content.

We are thrilled with the overwhelming developer support and are learning a lot from you on what works for your users.

We showcased Puzzlebee from thebroth, a facebook network of 26 Apps and 11M users.

Mark Wayman beat us to our own announcement by blogging about us here. His King of Vegas is now Socially minted too. You can play your way up and just spend $1 to move ahead in the game.

We are thrilled and look forward to working with you to monetize your Apps.

– The SocialMints Team