I want to give you my money
Notice: I am not affiliated with Flattr. This is truly my opinion of how great of a service Flattr is.
Flattr is probably one of the best ideas I have ever seen. Flattr is a service that lets you set a monthly dollar amount and then divide it up among the articles and/or sites that you have “Flattr-ed”. When I find a piece of content that I have found interesting or helpful, I will sometimes go back and try to find a donate button or something similar. I want to give who ever wrote the article my money. Unfortunately, it is rare to find a donate button and when I do find one it is usually a over complicated process to give that person my money. Flattr solved this problem by just created a simple, non-obtrusive button that you click to “Flattr” the piece of content.
Flattr, unfortunately, has only been implemented on a few sites. It is incredibly rare for me to find a site that uses Flattr if I came from Google. A service like Flattr needs to reach a critical mass before it becomes useful. Sites don’t implement it because most people don’t use Flattr and most people don’t use Flattr because of the lack of sites that implement it.
Therefore, I am asking you to get a Flattr account and use it to Flattr the articles that you find useful and/or interesting. If you have a site then implement a Flattr button. It is an incredibly simple process and there is no downside. The minimum amount of money needed to continue use of Flattr is €2 (about $3) each month. Just skip you latte at Starbucks one day and you can use this service.
My favorite sites that currently uses Flattr are VimCasts and Cocoanetics. If your site uses Flattr leave a comment below and I will add it to my reading list. I want to give you my money.