Tinypass, a flexible and consumer-friendly paywall platform for digital publishers, announced today a new content metering capability that allows publishers to provide a specified amount of free – or “metered” – access to their site’s content before visitors are asked to pay. The technology offers publishers a broad range of control in implementing a metered access model, enabling them to set the amount of free content users are able to view based upon either the number of articles/resources retrieved or by time frame. For example, offering 24-hours of free access to allow visitors to preview site offerings.
“We’re committed to empowering digital publishers with the ability to monetize their content in effective, affordable and consumer-friendly ways,” said David Restrepo, Chief Operating Officer of Tinypass. “What’s great about the new, metered access capability is that it allows content owners of any size to quickly and easily implement a customized access model that their visitors will already be familiar with from experience accessing content on the sites of several of the world’s largest publishers. Like the rest of our cloud-based technology platform, the metering tools are completely scalable and, with zero upfront costs, can be deployed by operators of all sizes.”
The metering functionality is built into Tinypass’ plugins for WordPress and Drupal, as well as Tinypass’ PHP- and Java-based APIs. Media owners Worldcrunch, Summit Business Media and the Chicago Phoenix are among the first publishers to begin rolling out the new meter tool on their sites.
In addition to offering site owners a choice between a quantity or time frame approach, the Tinypass metering tool can be implemented in two separate technology modes – a client-side mode or a client- and server-side mode. The client-side mode operates in a manner similar to the paywall offerings of the New York Times and The Financial Times and works through cookies added to the user’s browser. After users have accessed a preset amount of free content, they are asked to create an account to continue reading.
A more secure approach includes both client- and server-side user confirmation. The addition of a small amount of code to the publisher’s content management system (CMS) prevents users from circumventing the access meter simply by clearing the cookies in his or her browser.
Using the Tinypass meter, publishers are free to make their own decisions in regards to inbound, referring links to their site. Visits that originate from social networking and other news sharing sites can be counted against the meter or treated as separate interactions that do not count against free views.
