Web Surfers to Pay Online Using Social Media

A major European media company is looking to boost internet sales for newspapers and music vendors through social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

The internet poses a problem for newspaper publishers who wish to make money from the articles they post online. Some newspaper publishers are worried that by asking visitors to take out a full subscription, their viewers will leave them and go somewhere else for information. Many authors are worried that viewers are still unwilling to pay a fee to read these articles and gain new information.

However, a company in Belgium has created a new system that allows internet surfers to pay to read individual articles or download music without having to enter all their credit card information online. The company, called Paycento, takes advantage of the fact that readers are usually logged in to their social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Paycento has their visitors pay a small fee by simply clicking a ‘Share’ or ‘Tweet’ button to post an article on their profile. Without having to enter all their information, viewers are at the mercy of a button to read all the articles they want.

A former IBM executive, Dubois, set this company up last year because he saw a need for easy-to-use online payments. The system works by a user having a Paycento account online, which they link to their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Dubois hopes because it’s an easy to use program, that viewers would be more willing to pay a small fee to gain this information. Dubois explained he wanted the program to be as simple as possible. He said, “The payment is really seamless … so it’s like a one click payment on the internet.” Instead of having viewers type in their credit card information every single time they want to check out an article, Paycento can link through their social media sites to gain this information.

The company is looking to charge between 5 to 10 cents per article. But just how many viewers are willing to pay that fee? With hundreds of free programs still available to read newspaper articles and download music, Paycento will have to work hard to gain their viewers trust and money. The company has already talked to venture capitalists and is looking to raise $6.66 million dollars to last the company a few years.

A major European company is already working with Paycento to see just how much they can accomplish.

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