“Information wants to be free.” That’s what most Internet users believe. However, it costs money to put all of this “free” information and content up on the Internet in the first place.  And, of course, most site owners want their websites to make money. They may love what they do, but it’s a business, not a hobby.

Advertising is the most common solution to the dilemma of making money from “free” content. However, most of us have learned to ignore the ads, so they don’t always produce the necessary amount of revenue.  Contenture is a new service that aims to solve this problem by allowing users to pay a small fee each month to support their favorite Contenture-using sites. Their payment is split up among the different sites they visit.

We interviewed Contenture’s CTO, Sean  Hammons, to learn more about the service.  Here’s why he thinks Contenture will succeed at helping site owners get paid for their content:

Q) Explain the advantage of micropayments for participating web sites.

A) “Ads generally don’t pay well, unless you’re a big name. Contenture gives you another method to monetize using micropayments, and Contenture’s fully automated system guarantees a seamless experience for users. Just by visiting your site, that user pays you a micropayment.”

Q) What about consumers? What’s the advantage of Contenture for them?

A) “They can get exclusive access to content and features on web sites, and enjoy an ad-free experience on Contenture sites.”

Q) How do you plan to convince consumers to jump on the Contenture bandwagon and begin paying for content?

A) ” Of course there will be lots of people who don’t want to pay and never will. But some users do want to support the sites they love, and Contenture lets them do that. Sites also have the ability to give access to exclusive features and content for Contenture users, so by paying as little as 5.99/mo, total, you can access all of that with one centralized account.”

Contenture’s other major selling point is how easy it is to use. All you have to do to use Contenture to make money  is to cut and paste a snippet of Javascript code on to your site. They also have plug-ins for WordPress and Drupal. If your technical skills go beyond mere cutting and pasting, you can customize the Javascript to reward your loyal paying visitors by hiding adds, restricting comments or even offering select content only to them.

However, as TechCrunch noted, there may some initial hurdles in terms of getting people and site owners on board:

“But because it is based around a monthly-fee, we could be looking at a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Users may not want to sign up for the service because of the limited number of sites available — while sites not want to sign up because of the limited number of users.”

Contenture is relying on it’s dead-simple user interface, the promise of better revenues and an affiliate program to lure websites, and is hoping to snag some major partnerships to help the service take off.  Inamoon, a competing site with a similar service, is handling the chicken-and-egg issue by letting the first 10,000 consumers try the service for free.

Contenture is one of the only companies offering this type of service-Inamoon was the only other company I could find.  Contenture’s usefulness is naturally determined by the number of participating sites and consumers. Still, this is a relatively useful tool for anyone who runs a website or blog, and it has the potential to become indispensable as the company grows.

What do you think? Would you be willing to pay for content to support your favorite sites? What if the site owner used Contenture to offer extra goodies to paying visitors?

Our Rating of Contenture

Tags: Development

Categories:web