A few days ago, on the first of February, the 9th largest newspaper in the United States, The Chicago Sun-Times launched a ‘paywall’ of sorts, allowing users to make donations to the Taproot Foundation via bitcoin, or by ‘donating’ a tweet.
Some metrics are now available from BitWall, the west coast company that makes bitcoin paywalls that allow online media properties to monetize their content.
Here’s what the BitWall interface looked like on February 1st on the Sun-Times homepage:
Donation Data
For starters, there were 713 bitcoin donors that day. 63 percent of donors gave about 25 cents, and 31 percent gave between 26 cents and $16. 4 percent gave over $16, and 2 percent gave under 25 cents.
What do you think about these stats? Were you expecting more or less?
Donating Tweets
According to BitWall, users who donated a tweet were prompted to share information about the Taproot Foundation. On average, each tweet attracted 38 clicks to the Sun-Times.
But how does the Sun-Times react to the metrics?
“We were extremely pleased with the results,” said Sun-Times editor-in-chief Jim Kirk in a statement to newsBTC. “We had consistent engagement throughout the day. And were no complaints from readers. It was a very good test for us.”
When I asked if the paper had any plans to incorporate BitWall full-time, Kirk told me, “We are not near a decision.”
You can view a larger version of the graphic above here.