Flattr

Last updated
Flattr AB
Flattrlogo250.svg
Available inEnglish
Founded2010
Dissolved 2023
Headquarters Malmö, Sweden
Owner Eyeo GmbH
Founder(s) Peter Sunde
Linus Olsson
Industry Micropayments
URL flattr.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired

Flattr was a Swedish-based microdonation subscription service, where subscribers opted in to pay a monthly patronage to help fund their favourite websites and creators. It shut down in November 2023. [1]

Contents

Flattr subscribers installed an open-source browser extension that records which websites they frequent and shares this data with Flattr. [2] Flattr processes this user data and pays out shares of the user's subscription to each registered Flattr creator based on which websites the user consumed. [3] Flattr filtered websites by domains with a default allowlist of participating domains, but individual users could override and contribute to any website they want or withhold contributions from any website. [4]

History

In March 2010, Flattr launched on an invitation-only basis [5] and then opened to the public on 12 August of the same year. [6] [7]

The project was started by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Its first version required users to click on a "flattr" button on websites to "flattr" content. Sunde said, "We want to encourage people to share money as well as content." [5] The final version allowed users to pay a monthly donation (provided a minimum of 3 dollars) which was automatically split among websites, pages or platforms that are "flattrd" by Flattr's web extension.[ citation needed ]

In December 2010, Flattr received large-scale attention when it was tweeted to be a method of donating money to WikiLeaks, which had recently been cut off by PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard. [8]

On 28 April 2011, Flattr announced by email that they would not require users to subscribe to donate to others before they could be donated to themselves, starting from 1 May 2011. [9]

On 16 April 2013, Twitter announced that they would no longer allow Flattr users to donate to favorite sites via the Twitter platform, citing commercial confusion problems they believed would occur between users. [10]

In May 2016, Flattr partnered with the developer of the ad blocking browser extension Adblock Plus to create Flattr Plus, a service which allows users to automatically distribute a designated budget of monthly payments to web publishers based on their engagement. The service was conceived as a way for users to support online publishers as an alternative to advertising. [11]

On 5 April 2017, Adblock Plus publisher Eyeo GmbH announced that it had acquired Flattr for an undisclosed amount. Flattr also announced a beta of an overhauled "zero-click" version of the service adapted from the Flattr Plus concept. [12]

On 24 October 2017, Flattr announced the launch of “Flattr 2.0”. [13] [14] This version of Flattr was a zero-click service for automatic denoting of content on the web and various platforms as donation-worthy. Content creators had only to link their websites or supported platforms to be able to receive payments.

On 24 May 2018, Flattr made changes to their privacy policy to comply with the GDPR and began deleting previously collected user activity after three months. Flattr's old privacy policy allowed them to keep a record of their subscribers’ web browsing history indefinitely. [15]

Supported creator platforms

Flattr 2.0 was able to be used on websites via a meta tag, and supported various creator platforms including YouTube, Wordpress, Vimeo, Twitter, Twitch, Soundcloud, GitHub, 500px and Flickr.

Corporate affairs

Funding

In 2012, Flattr received €1.6 million in funding from Passion Capital Investments, LLP and Federico Pirzio-Biroli. [16] [17]

As part of its collaboration with Flattr, Eyeo GmbH also made an investment in Flattr. [11]

Sponsorships

In 2017, Flattr became a supporting partner of MozFest, Mozilla's annual festival devoted to a healthy web. [18]

Awards

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StumbleUpon</span> Discovery and advertisement engine

StumbleUpon was a browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine. Users were able to filter results by type of content and were able to discuss such webpages via virtual communities and to rate such webpages via like buttons. StumbleUpon was shut down in June 2018.

Ad blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adblock Plus</span> Content-filtering and ad blocking browser extension

Adblock Plus (ABP) is a free and open-source browser extension for content-filtering and ad blocking. It is developed by Eyeo GmbH, a German software company. The extension has been released for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, and Android.

Filterset.G was a third-party set of filters for ad filtering extensions such as Adblock Plus used with Firefox web browser. The filterset contained pre-made and regularly updated filters that removed ads from various ad providers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weebly</span> Web hosting service

Weebly is an American web hosting and web development company headquartered in San Francisco and is a subsidiary of Block, Inc. It was founded in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer David Rusenko, Chief Technology Officer Chris Fanini, and former Chief Product Officer Dan Veltri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sunde</span> Swedish entrepreneur and politician

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, alias brokep, is a Swedish entrepreneur and politician. He is best known for being a co-founder and ex-spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, an illegal BitTorrent search engine. He is an equality advocate and has expressed concerns over issues of centralization of power to the European Union in his blog. Sunde also participates in the Pirate Party of Finland and describes himself as a socialist. In April 2017, Sunde founded Njalla, a privacy oriented domain name registrar, hosting provider and VPN provider.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimdo</span> German web hosting service

Jimdo is a German website builder privately held and headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with offices in Munich and Tokyo. Jimdo has two products, Creator and Dolphin, offering free and paid plans.

AdBlock is an ad-blocking browser extension for Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox, Samsung Internet, and Microsoft Edge. AdBlock allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being displayed. It is free to download and use, and it includes optional donations to the developers. The AdBlock extension was created on December 8, 2009, which is the day that supports for extensions was added to Google Chrome. It was one of the first Google Chrome extensions that were made.

Flipboard is a news aggregator and social network aggregation company based in Palo Alto, California, with offices in New York, Vancouver, and Bejiing. Its software, also known as Flipboard, was first released in July 2010. It aggregates content from social media, news feeds, photo sharing sites, and other websites, presents it in magazine format, and allows users to "flip" through the articles, images, and videos being shared. Readers can also save stories into Flipboard magazines. As of March 2016 the company claims there have been 28 million magazines created by users on Flipboard. The service can be accessed via web browser, or by a Flipboard application for Microsoft Windows and macOS, and via mobile apps for iOS and Android. The client software is available at no charge and is localized in 21 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolphin Browser</span> Web browser for Android and iOS

The Dolphin Browser is a web browser for the Android and iOS operating systems developed by MoboTap Inc. It was one of the first alternative browsers for the Android platform that introduced support for multi-touch gestures. Dolphin Browser uses its native platform's default browser engine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinterest</span> American photo sharing and saving website

Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information like recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the internet using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards. Created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco.

Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.

Mixcloud is a popular British online music streaming service that allows for the listening and distribution of radio shows, DJ mixes and podcasts, which are crowdsourced by its registered users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sketchfab</span> 3D modeling platform website

Sketchfab is a 3D asset website used to publish, share, discover, buy and sell 3D, VR and AR content. It provides a viewer based on the WebGL and WebXR technologies that allows users to display 3D models on the web, to be viewed on any mobile browser, desktop browser or Virtual Reality headset.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patreon</span> American crowdfunding website created in 2013

Patreon is a monetization platform operated by Patreon, Inc., that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service and sell digital products. It helps artists and other creators earn a recurring income by providing rewards and perks to its subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 9 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees.

uBlock Origin Web browser extension

uBlock Origin is a free and open-source browser extension for content filtering, including ad blocking. The extension is available for Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Pale Moon, as well as versions of Safari prior to 13. uBlock Origin has received praise from technology websites and is reported to be much less memory-intensive than other extensions with similar functionality. uBlock Origin's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brave (web browser)</span> Chromium-based open-source web browser

Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. Brave is a privacy-focused browser, which automatically blocks most advertisements and website trackers in its default settings. Users can turn on optional ads that reward them for their attention in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), which can be used as a cryptocurrency or to make payments to registered websites and content creators.

Vavel is a sports news website. It has 8 editions; Spain, United States, United Kingdom, France, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, and Colombia. VAVEL is able to readers in 4 different languages.

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.

References

  1. ↑ "Flattr". Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023. Our old service is shutting down.
  2. ↑ "Our extension is now open source!". Flattr blog. 2018-01-31. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  3. ↑ "The New Flattr Algorithm: How does it work?". Flattr blog. 2017-11-10. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  4. ↑ "Automatically contribute to funding the web with the new Flattr extension". Ctrl blog. 2017-10-25. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  5. 1 2 "Pirate boss to make the web pay". BBC News. February 12, 2010. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  6. ↑ Steve O'Hear (August 12, 2010). "Flattr opens to the public, now anybody can 'Like' a site with real money". TechCrunch Europe. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
  7. ↑ Flattr now open for everyone! Archived 2010-08-15 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Butcher, Mike (2010-12-08). "WikiLeaks continues to fund itself via tech startup Flattr". Eu.techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2012-02-03.
  9. ↑ Olson, Parmy (April 28, 2011). "Flattr Goes Free To Revolutionize Online Payments". Forbes. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  10. ↑ Linus Olsson (16 April 2013). "Twitter is forcing us to drop users ability to flattr creators by favoriting their tweets". Flattr blog. Archived from the original on 16 May 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  11. 1 2 "AdBlock Plus teams up with Flattr to help readers pay publishers". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  12. ↑ "The company behind Adblock Plus is acquiring micropayment service Flattr". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  13. ↑ Hughes, Matthew (2017-10-24). "Flattr now lets you pay content creators without having to actually do anything". The Next Web. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  14. ↑ "Today's the day: Flattr 2.0 launches to the public!". blog.flattr.com. Archived from the original on 2018-03-02. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
  15. ↑ "Flattr now deletes your web browsing history within 3 months". Ctrl blog. 2018-05-30.
  16. ↑ "Flattr secures $2.1 million in venture funding". Financial Deals Tracker. 16 February 2012.
  17. ↑ "'Cat's out of the bag – yes, Flattr now has investors'". FlattrBlog. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  18. ↑ Mozilla (2017-10-10). "Flattr, a Champion of Digital Creators, Signs on as MozFest Sponsor". Medium. Retrieved 2019-08-21.
  19. ↑ The Europas European Startup Awards 2010 - The Winners and Finalists
  20. ↑ "Hoola Bandoola Band-award - Flattr blog". Archived from the original on 2011-02-06. Retrieved 2011-02-03.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.