What is SurfShare?
SurfShare is an experimental sandbox to help us explore microcredit models for independent publishers.
What it does
- Provides a simple way for bloggers and news publishers to measure the reading habits of and provide feedback to individual readers
- Provide a platform for experimentation and research into effective micropayment models to support a new business model option for journalism.
- Provide benefits to readers as described in this earlier blog post
Features
Features for readers include:
- Real time feedback of my usage of individual sites e.g. # of stories, # of visits and time spent on the site
- Searchable, browsable history of every blog and news story I've read
- Marking stories as Favorites, including a sharable RSS feed
- Auto-analysis and tagging of stories I read
Features for publishers include:
- Real time site usage statistics
- Real time activity meters for individual readers
- Widgets for top and most liked stories and top readers (e.g. like Hall of Fame)
Add Your Site to the SurfShare Network
If you are a journalism or news publication online, please add your site now. Integrating with SurfShare is extremely fast and easy.
Please post your questions and feedback to our blog announcement for SurfShare
Disclaimers
- This is alpha software.
- This software is not scaled for production
- Reader activities are not yet synchronized across multiple computers, browsers and devices
- No monetary integration exists at this time
- Much more is possible, but not much of this is implemented currently.
Credits
Shout outs to Steve Outing whose editorial "Your News Content Is Worth Zero to Digital Consumers" inspired me to write my post and to Nieman Labs and Mathew Ingram for continuing the discussion. Steve also gets props for making his blog one of our first participating sites.
Thanks also to some of our early participating bloggers such as Chuck Taylor, Vadim Lavrusik, Phillip Smith and Jon Stahl.
Contacts