Since PayBITS is such a major experiment for us, I thought I'd provide a quick report on how the first week went. Despite my not realizing that building a suggested amount into a PayPal URL would prevent people from entering their own amount (unless they cleverly edited the URL), my iPhoto Techniques article received 26 payments for a total of $116.50. I wouldn't walk past that on the sidewalk. Even more impressive was the response to the PayBITS block at the end of the actual PayBITS introduction, which attracted 53 new TidBITS contributors and generated over $1,100. A huge "Thank You!" to those of you who participated, not just for the financial support, but also for believing that it's reasonable to assign value to the information we consume.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/06909>
<http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Feedback about PayBITS continued to roll in to TidBITS Talk and to me personally, and I've tried to reply to everyone. Most people were still overwhelmingly positive about the idea, though some remain unconvinced that it will work in practice. All I can say is that you never know until you try.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1707 +1696>
As we continue, we'll be testing out a variety of different things with PayBITS, including varying the wording, testing different payment services, and more. Plus, a number of people have expressed interest in writing for us to help test PayBITS, so we won't have any trouble providing a wide variety of great articles in the near future.