I thought this post on Andy’s blog was a good idea, and it got me thinking about some of the things I’ve liked lately, so I decided to follow suit and share.
First, I have to agree with tipjoy and bit.ly. Tipjoy is tackling the micropayments problem from a totally innovative angle by recognizing the true pain of micropayments–I don’t care so much about paying $.25 for something; rather, I don’t want to take the time to enter my credit card info or sign up with some 3rd party that will supposedly manage this for me. All tipjoy asks for when I want to make a micropayment/donation is my email address. Their user acquisition UI is awesome, and you should check it out if you’re into that sort of thing. Whether or not they will be successful and convince people to actually pay out these tips remains to be seen, but I have high hopes and think they’re on the right track.
bit.ly I of course love because (1) it’s smart and (2) I’ve been thinking about the tiny-url-on-steroids space a bit myself (tinydb.org).
Other on my list of things I have recently liked are:
Of all of these, disqus is by far my favorite. I now actually get angry when blogs don’t have this: “The audacity! How will I know if someone responds to my comment? Do I have to check back here every few hours?” They have really made blog conversation what it always should have been. I would guess my commenting is up 800% since disqus has become popular on blogs that I read.
Disqus also has a lot of other cool benefits, like giving me a comment history. It’s fun to look back and see what I’ve been reading and what I’ve been thinking about what I read. As a blogger myself (as opposed to a commenter), I’ve found that disqus is very good at spam prevention, and provides a little more accountability. People are less likely to leave stupid comments if those comments are attached to their comment-record. I also think it helps encourage comments by reducing usual 4 comment fields (Name, Email, URL, Comment) down to 1, just comment.
Love disqus! Check out some of that other stuff, too, and hit me with a link to the list of things you’ve liked lately.
