:

T. Liam Vederman (Boston, MA)

No Free Verse

Vederman: Over the past year I have chronicled the decline of the Net. Sites I once enjoyed have either disappeared, been abandoned, or become overgrown with pop-up banner ads. You the readers have lamented these facts as well and have asked what can be done to stop this decay? Today we will be speaking with someone who actually has an idea for what should be done although whether it will make things better or worse remains in doubt. I now introduce my guest "Ed", founder and CEO of Yamba.com.

Vederman: What does Yamba do?

Ed: Yamba is the leader in microtransaction technology.

Vederman: And what are microtransactions?

Ed: Microtransactions are transaction less than ten dollars, sometimes as small as a fraction of a cent. The current financial system does not handle transactions of these sizes very well because of the interchange fees charged by Visa and MasterCard as well as the issuing banks are so large that a merchant would get nothing back if it charged less than ten dollars for an item.
Our system allows these transactions to be processed at much lower overhead as well simplifying the paperwork required to initiate the transaction. Currently if you wish to buy an item over the Web you are required to fill out lengthy forms detailing your name, address and credit card number each time you wish to make a purchase. Our system does not require this making it much more practical to make many small purchases.

Vederman: And why are microtransactions important to the Web?

Ed: Microtransactions will allow all the content on the Net to be monetarized i.e. converted to a form where they have financial value. An item can only have financial value if you can charge somebody for it.
Let me give you some background. Over the past ten years millions of individuals and companies have created web pages of useful information. Many individuals did it as an adjunct to a hobby that they were already involved in. Companies did it either because marketing agencies told them that it was the thing to do or they thought that providing information about their industry and product would increase their business. Others hoped that advertising would support them.

The problem is that in the current economic downturn huge numbers of these Web sites are being abandoned. The original creators either no longer have the time or the money to maintain them. And with the current financial system there is no direct monetary incentive to maintain this content. Our microtransaction technology will allow Web site creators to charge for their content thereby giving them an inventive to maintain their sites.

Vederman: You mean to say that you want to charge for reading regular Web pages? That will never work. Only porno and financial/sports data sites are able to charge fees. Everyone else that has tried to charge, Slate, Salon, has failed.

Ed: Yes, but only because they were not able to charge what the readers were willing to pay. Like I said before the existing credit card system is not setup to handle small transactions. With our system the reader is charged a small amount on a per view basis.

Vederman: People are still never going to pay.

Ed: They are going to have too if the Net is going to survive. In the past Web content providers thought they could support themselves by surrounding their content with banner ads. But the dot.com crash killed the market for online advertising. Web browsers have learned to "tune out" banner ads like they hit the preset button on their stereo when a commercial comes on. More intrusive ads using Flash or pop-up windows only cause users to adopt software that filters such content out.

As the effectiveness of ads goes down advertisers are willing to pay less and less, which causes a vicious cycle. Lower advertising revenue causes content providers to cut editorial expenses, which means less real content on the site and therefore less reason for the web browser to visit the site in the first place.

Our system rationalizes the whole exchange. If the reader finds the content entertaining or useful he pays the content creator a fair price for it. It is not reliant on subsidies from third party advertisers.

Vederman: Where have you implemented this system?

Ed: We are currently working with Voiding the Void on a prototype pay-per-read poetry system. Readers will be charged by the stanza.

Vederman: That's crazy! No one will pay to read poetry!

Ed: I know it's true that currently poets have lower earning potential than non-fiction writers, or even fiction writers but their work has some value or else no one would bother read it. The marketplace will determine exactly what that value is, a penny, half a penny, or a smaller fraction.

Vederman: In the unlikely event that I was interested in pursuing the content that is available under your system how would I go about doing it?

Ed: Its very simple. Just buy a copy of Microsoft Windows XP, sign up for Microsoft Passport, and give them your bank account number. Then whenever you read content supplied by our affiliated authors a small fee will be deducted from your account and transferred to the author, minus a small percentage for my firm and our business partners, i.e. Microsoft.

Vederman: I guess our readers should enjoy the free verse while it remains free. Take a look at www.vvoid.com in the upcoming year and see what mercantile travesty Ed and his partners have made of the poetic arts.