Flattr

Flattr AB

Foundation date	2010
Headquarters	Malmö, Sweden
Founder(s)	Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson
Industry	micropayments
Slogan(s)	We aim to make people share money on the internet.
Website	flattr.com
Registration	Required
Available in	English

Flattr is a Swedish based microdonation provider founded by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson and launched in March 2010.^[1]

History

In March 2010 Flattr launched via an invite-only basis^[2] and then opened to the public on 12 August of the same year.^[3][4]

Flattr is a project started by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. Users are able to pay a small amount every month (minimum 2 euros) and then click Flattr buttons on sites to share the money they paid among those sites, comparable to an Internet tip jar. (The word "flattr" is used as a verb, to indicate payments through the Flattr system-so when a user clicks a Flattr button and they are logged in to the Flattr site, they are said to be "flattring" the page they are on.) Sunde said, "We want to encourage people to share money as well as content."^[2]

In the beginning of the service, Flattr itself takes 10% of all the users' monthly flatrate, although this fee may be reduced at a later date if the economics permit it.^[2]

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.^[5]

On 28 April 2011, Flattr announced by email that they would not require users to flattr others before they could be flattrd themselves, starting from 1 May 2011.

Extensions

Peter Sunde (Flattr's founder)

As the service relies on network effect to prove useful, it is necessary that users join and have the opportunity to flattr and be flattr'd. A wide number of platforms are supported including WordPress, Blogger, and Joomla among many others. To foster faster adoption, including on sites that may not natively support Flattr, a Firefox plugin, Överallt ("everywhere" in Swedish) has been developed.^[6] It allows the equipped browsers to parse a simple plain-text tag ([Flattr=ID]) and replace it inline with the Flattr widget. This extends the range of Flattr, so that not only sites that support Flattr, but all sites, can have Flattr buttons.

For real-world or non-web content

Flattr is also being demonstrated as being useful for micro-donations to offline content, including those which are non-computer based, by way of mobile device recognition of QR codes. A number of existing services^[7] exist to allow for the "flattr-ing" of non-web-based content, including offline content, using many smartphones' capability of recognizing physical QR codes. Utilizing QR codes attached to Flattr buttons allows for donations to the specific physical or non-web-based item of choice.

Adding funds

Adding money to a Flattr account, and withdrawing revenue from a Flattr account can be done via PayPal, Moneybookers, several credit cards (including Visa, EC and MasterCard) and other methods.^[8] As of December 2012, Bitcoin is being considered as a payment option.^[9]

Corporate affairs

Funding

In 2012 Flattr received funding from Passion Capital Investments, LLP and Federico Pirzio-Biroli to the sum of EUR1.6 million.^[1][10]

Awards

• Best New Startup in 2010 - TechCrunch Europe.^[11]
• Hoola Bandoola Band award.^[12][13]
• Top-10 in Netexplorateur 2011.^[14]

See also

• FundRazr
• Propster: similiar but takes no commission.
• Micropayment
• Micro-donations

References

External links

• Flattr
• Flattr blog