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BitWall part of Showcase at SF BETA: The Future of Gaming - Wednesday, January 27th As BitWall has grown, we have brought on a variety of different publishers. One particular subset of publishers is those who write content about games and the gaming industry. We decided to attend the SF BETA: The Future of Gaming showcase to better understand the gaming world and how to better drive value for these publishers and gaming developers in the community. As part of the startup showcase, we were able to engage with a great group of people, ranging from gaming developers to hard core gamers. This included not only industry veterans but also people looking to get started in the gaming industry, such as students studying animation and illustration at San Jose State University. 

  In the showcase, there was a wide variety of game developers showing off their latest games. There were single developer teams, such as Wigl (a flute controlled robot that teaches kids to learn music in a fun way), and companies as large as Episode, a choose-your-own story adventure produced by Pocket Gems. 

After each showcase company gave a brief pitch, Matt Conn (CEO of Midboss) moderated a panel that included Bob Mills (Developer Relations at OUYA), Rick Johnson (Founder of Technical Illusions), and Tony Parisi (Virtual Reality Pioneer). The panel engaged in a 30-minute discussion, followed by an audience Q&A segment. The panel covered topics such as augmented reality, better inclusion in the gaming industry, where board games fit in the future of gaming, and the inevitable sloth/human cross-over with the increase of technology replacing human tasks. 

  It was particularly exciting to see the panelists emphasis to foster an environment more female friendly and what larger companies should be doing to create this environment.

Huge thank you for Christian Perry and SFBeta for bringing this all together and making it possible. We look forward to future opportunities to be part of a great gaming community.

[bitwall]

Don't Rely on a Cat Gif to Go Viral

Social sharing is an integral part to any digital publisher's business. It stimulates conversation around articles and drives business forward.

Years of research have gone into quantifying how to create a great social strategy and release viral content. This is one of the more broadly accepted formulas so far:

cat gif + bacon = viral 

There is a lot of truth in that formula! There is also, however, a lot of luck there too. 

The BIG PICTURE: Facebook shares and Tweets have an important impact on driving new viewers and stimulating conversation. Let's dive into this further.

Who shares well? Let's look at the numbers.

Upworthy, Elite Daily, and Buzzfeed are currently dominating Facebook sharing. On average, the three receive upwards of 50% of their traffic from Facebook. This means up to 50% of their readers come from Facebook alone.

Interestingly enough, the top socially shared sites only receive 3% of their traffic from Twitter. More on this below. 

Tech focused sites gain about 16% of their traffic from Facebook and 2% from Twitter on average. More traditional news sites receive about 7% of their traffic from Facebook and 2% from Twitter.

What does this mean? Key Takeaways.

There is an appetite for people to discover content on Facebook, and you can use it to drive your publication forward. There are several publishers who are doing this very well. 

Twitter as the "upstream" site is relatively small compared to Facebook. People look to Twitter as a way to discover and share content. It is a resource with a lot of growth potential that can have a large impact on driving new readers.

Priming Your Site for Social

Placement of share buttons is key. On the best socially propagated sites, there are around 6 large share buttons on each screen. No matter where you are on the page, there are large buttons in your face telling you to share with your network. Individual referrals have a strong impact on generating interest in your story. The best social publishers ask their readers to share their content. 

The constant, large call to actions are a driving force behind getting more people to engage in sharing content and adding their own personal thoughts to the piece.

Upworthy, Elite Daily, and Buzzfeed have done a great job showcasing how to make social core to their publishing - now it's time for you to get in on the action as well. 

We made a WordPress plugin to help with the process. Here you will find our new Video Social Share plugin. Once activated on your blog, it will add 6 call-to-action buttons around your video, giving the optimal format to your readers to encourage sharing. 

WordPress Video Share PlugIn

Let's get sharing!

-Team BitWall

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On February 1, we launched a Bitcoin and Twitter-powered paywall with the Chicago Sun-Times. There are several key aspects of this launch to highlight.

Low-Friction Micropayments

When readers visited www.suntimes.com on February 1, they were greeted with a BitWall paywall prompting them to donate Bitcoin or donate a Tweet, with all proceeds going to support the Taproot Foundation – a non-profit. They could donate a Tweet in as little as 2-clicks; they could also donate Bitcoin with ease.

In total, the Taproot Foundation received over 700 Bitcoin donations from readers, with the donation amount ranging from as little as $0.01 to as large as over $1,000. Each Tweet drove an average of 38 new readers to the promotion, increasing visibility tremendously. A few clicks go a long way.

Improving Engagement with your Readers

The social impact (Bitcoin and Tweet donations to the Taproot Foundation) of this launch was great. The second impact of this launch was to underscore how a micropayment can be “microengagement”. The feedback we have received from readers emphasized the great engagement people had with the promotion. When you give your readers options for how to engage in your content (via Bitcoin, Tweet, etc.) you are allowing them to choose the one that best fits their style. That drives greater engagement and helps you drive value to a larger array of consumers.

The payment style you choose (and in the Chicago Sun-Times’ case, donation style) is an extension of your brand. Use that as an opportunity to not only receive payments, but also truly engage with your readers. That is how you can maximize your results. 

Thanks, 

Team BitWall

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BitWall Now on WordPress

Now you can easily implement BitWall onto your blog with the BitWall Wordpress plugin. Anyone with a Wordpress.org blog can access our merchant tools with ease.

Visit http://wordpress.org/plugins/bitwall/ to access our plugin now.

Your BitWall paywall is still fully customizable. Through your BitWall merchant account, set your preferences, and then use your unique widget ID to bring your paywalls to life!

As always, we look forward to hearing your thoughts, questions, and feedback.

Team BitWall

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Social Media As Currency – The Dish Daily Launches BitWall Social Paywall

Last Friday, The Dish Daily launched the first official BitWall custom social paywall.

On The Dish Daily homepage, readers received a preview of the article - DeltaBid Embodies Estonia Startup Culture – before accessing it. Upon clicking on it, BitWall prompts them to Tweet about the article to earn access to it.

When a reader clicks “Share Now”, a Twitter box appears on the page with a pre-written Tweet and a link to the article, ensuring that the Tweet can drive more viewers to your page. The Dish Daily also decided to serve custom ads through the BitWall paywall, letting their readers opt in to view an ad in lieu of Tweeting. Tweet or pay through an ad view – that’s the BitWall paywall that fits The Dish Daily’s needs.

Social media can be more than a means for people to discover content – it can be a form of payment and a way to reward your readers. With the BitWall “Tweet to See” feature, you can allow your readers to unlock access to premium content.

We are thrilled about the feedback that has been pouring in and are excited about the early results. We are committed to being the best way for publishers to drive their business forward, and that comes through working with both publishers and readers. Your feedback is incredibly important, so please keep sending it our way.

Feel free to reach out to us with any questions, feedback, or just to say hello!

Thanks!

Team BitWall

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New BitWall Widget Design

We are excited to announce our latest widget design. When creating your BitWall paywall, you have more ability to customize than ever. With improved customization, we have updated the design to fit your publishing needs.

The core tenets of our paywall are the same:

1. Single-article payment

2. 24-Hour unlimited access

3. Tweet to See

4. Skip to ad-supported content

The new design, however, better showcases to your readers how to engage with your content, giving them an improved experience.

In your merchant account, you have the ability to customize your widget according to the needs of your business. Upload a logo, set your title, and choose how you want your consumers to engage with your content.

Stay tuned for new releases coming soon! Also, be sure to check out www.movember2013.tumblr.com, where we are raising awareness for Movember with our very own blog and customized BitWall Twitter paywall.

Thanks!

Team BitWall

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Access to BitWall Beta

We are excited to now be granting publishers and bloggers access to the BitWall beta! These last few weeks we have started giving access to our merchant suite of tools.

Customize your BitWall PayWall

When a reader arrives on your site, you can have them pay for access to a single article, pay for 24-hours of unlimited access to all of your content, or allow them to Tweet about your site to unlock 3 hours of unlimited access. If you don’t mind if your readers pay or not, you can allow them to skip directly to the article. Select which features you want to include.

Additionally, the BitWall merchant tools give you access to the following functionality:

Customize with your own logo

Choose the price for single article access

Choose the price for daily article access

Customize your Tweet

And more

Implementing the BitWall widget only requires one line of JavaScript.

Be sure to check out some of the recent bloggers who are using BitWall today! Here are two to get your feet wet:

Brayton Williams – Finally! A 21st Century Newspaper

BTC Geek – Free Bitcoin

We want to hear from you!

Be sure to sign up for the BitWall beta. We will be giving more publishers and bloggers access to it soon. If you have already signed up for the beta, then look for an email from us soon!

Please email us at [email protected] with questions or feedback. We are always happy to hear from you!

-Team BitWall

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Unlocking the World of Micropayments

We are committed to making micropayments easy and profitable for publishers. With BitWall, publishers can unlock revenue that previously was not possible. For this reason, we want to showcase micropayments as the true heroes they are. 

  Micropayments are great! When you have many people using micropayments to consume content, you can generate substantial revenue. The “Payvengers" work with publishers and users to provide the content users want to read and generate the revenue publishers need. 

Stay tuned for more information about BitWall and be sure to follow The Payvengers’ story – they will showcase best practices and creative ways to keep driving revenue for your content.

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Micropayments Then and Now (part1)

Micropayments are often defined as online transactions below 10 USD in value. However, one of the biggest challenges over the years has been to profitably enable transactions that are $1 or less. 

Online transactions below $1 have many use-cases:

5 cents to read an article from an online news provider

99 cents to watch an exclusive online video about sales

50 cents to remove ads from your video streaming experience

·      The list goes on…

Transaction fees are the biggest barrier.

The standard payment method for physical newspapers over the years is with coins. Consumers grew accustomed to paying a few quarters for the daily newspaper.

Now, publishers are online. Transaction fees to accept online payments have been too high for publishers to drive value for these low payments.

That’s where BitWall comes in. Accepting a quarter for a newspaper is easy and profitable. Accepting $0.25 for an online transaction should also be easy. The World Wide Web makes distribution easier for publishers. That quarter can go a long way online. We are making sure that it does. 

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Meet the BitWall Team

We are based in San Francisco, CA, and are currently part of the Boost accelerator. Boost focuses on driving product development and achieving measurable business goals. We are thrilled to be part of the accelerator and can’t wait to share our progress with everyone.

You can summarize our team work-style in two ways: collaborative problem solving and hackathons. We have a mini team hackathon every week; it’s really just an excuse to keep working all night, but it gets the job done! BitWall was the winner of the Bitcoin 2013 hackathon, and we continue to tackle our work with the same intensity.

Nic is CEO of BitWall. He previously worked for Visa and has always had an affinity for the payments space. He has an incredible drive and ability to keep the team focused, while making sure we hit our deadlines.

Chad, CTO of BitWall, brings both a hardware and software engineering background to the team, and he has an incredible attention to detail. Whether deciding on a product feature for BitWall or what to have for breakfast, Chad makes sure we do our due diligence and make the right decision.

Alex is Chief Creative and Head of Marketing. If you are Tweeting, Facebooking, or posting anywhere about BitWall, Alex is reading it. She tackles UX and asset design for the website and provides a much needed spark with "gamestorming" activities. Alex is also Head Chef of the team, keeping everyone stuffed with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and the occasional vegetable.

We look forward to sharing more about BitWall in the coming weeks!

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Welcome to BitWall

Thanks for visiting our blog! BitWall is a micropayment platform for digital publishers. BitWall was the winner of the Boost Hackathon at the Bitcoin 2013 Conference in San Jose in May. We are getting ready to launch our first product this summer. Be sure to follow our blog for product updates and more. We are piloting the first version of the product internally now. Soon we will have a private beta, where we will release with our first publishing partner. Stay tuned for more details. We want to hear from you! If you are a publisher and want to learn more, please Request a Demo or Contact Us. If you have general questions or feedback, feel free to email us directly at [email protected]. Thanks! Best, Team BitWall