DEV Community: Michymile

Web Monetization for Content Creators

Michymile — Sun, 28 Feb 2021 23:07:33 +0000

Web Monetization, a new way for content creators to generate revenue from their Content.
I will begin with the quote below:

If You Don't Find A Way To Make Money While You Sleep, You Will Work Until You Die.

-Warren Buffet

Are you tired of seeing Ads when you visit your favorite pages? Do you want a strong privacy protection on the web? Do you want to earn money from your content?

Thanks to web monetization.

What is Web Monetization?

Web monetization is an open technology that allows websites to request micropayment from a user. The user must be on Coil subscription. Coil is the only available subscription for now. Web monetization is very easy to implement. You can monetize your blog pages, YouTube channels, and websites by simply adding a meta tag containing your payment pointer to the head section in your HTML document.

What is Coil Subscription?

Coil charges it users $5 monthly to give access to all monetized content, privacy protection, Ads-free and exclusive content. When Coil subscribers visit a monetized page, the browser streams micropayment to the creators page. This way, both the visitors and the content creators get benefits.
In other for the payment to count, you must use Coil Browser Extension to access those pages.
These are the coil browser extensions for Desktop: Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave Browser,
Google Chrome
and Puma Browser extension for Mobile.

What is a Payment Pointer?

A payment pointer is a unique URL assigned to your payment account by a web monetization receiver. The unique address is what you will be adding to the websites you want to monetize.
How to get a payment pointer?
You need to signup with a wallet that support an interledger payment protocol, the protocol used for payments across different payment networks. Uphold and Gatehub are the available ones for now.

How to get your Interledger Payment Pointer

I will show you how to get your interledger payment pointer from uphold.
First, go to Uphold sign up and verify your account. Log in and go to your Dashboard . Click on Transact on the far right.

Select From. Scroll down to Other Networks then click on Interledger

There you have your interledger payment pointer. Copy the URL which will be added to your web page in the next step.

How to Monetize your Blog Page

Now, I will show you how to monetize your blog page. In this example, I will use Dev.to, a blog platform for content writers. You can use other blog platforms of your choice.

Kindly note, not all websites support web monetization. To find out if your preferred site uses web monetization, simply hold down shift and press ctrl j on your keyboard, for windows PC. And ctrl j on a Mac, or right click anywhere on the webpage, and at the very bottom of the menu that pops up, select "Inspect" to view the HTML document. At the head section, if you can find monetization meta tag as shown here

<meta name ="monetization" content="$wallet.uphold.com/cggter">

that means the site is monetized.

Back to the main business. After creating and verifying your account on Dev.to Go to the Settings menu, click on Extensions then scroll down to Web monetization section. Add your interledger payment pointer and save.

That's all, your Dev.to page has been monetized.

Now, onto the next one

How to get Coil Subscription

Create an account on Coil. At the top right corner of your dashboard you will see "Go to Settings". Click on it and choose Membership, add a payment method and subscribe for $5 monthly. Use a promo code if you have one.

How to Monetize your YouTube Channel

On the Coil page, click "Go to Settings", select Monetize content from the menu. You will see a plus(+) button for adding all the channels you wish to monetize, including your YouTube channel.

How to Monetize your Personal Website

Add meta tag in the head section of the HTML document. The name attribute must have the value of 'monetization' and the value of the content attribute should be your interledger payment pointer, through which the website will accept payment.

<!doctype html> <html> <head> <title>Web Monetized Site</title> <meta name="monetization" content="$wallet.uphold.com/eg4n"> </head> </html>

The pages must be served over https, or
http://localhost for testing.

Feel free to drop your comments and suggestions. Or reach out to me on Twitter

More Resources:

Webmonetization

Interledger

https://github.com/WICG/webmonetization

https://community.webmonetization.org/uchibeke/a-program-to-get-more-people-into-web-monetization-54j6

Ways to Make Money as a Content Creator

Michymile — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 20:51:07 +0000

If you are a content creator (Writer, Sculptor, Podcaster, Painter, Photographer, Musician, Dancer, Vlogger etc. ) looking to start earning from your content. Here, I am going to explain different ways you can make money online.

Donations

Set up a donation platform like Patreon, where users can donate a little amount of money in support of your content. Creators use Patreon to generate income from more than 3 million active patrons. Many people seek out ways and are willing to support their favorite creators.
There are many other platforms you can use, but Patreon is one of the top platforms.

This has been the oldest and still the number one form of revenue generation. You receive money in other to promote a third party business. If you have many social media fans or followers you can make use of your platform to promote other businesses and services for a fee. Many businesses promote their product with influencers on social media.
The tip is, try to get more active fans, and display creative content on your page. That way, you will be attracting businesses looking to do promotions.
Otherwise, Google and Facebook ads are a great deal. Make use of Google Adsense and Facebook to monetize your content.

Subscription

As a creator, you can have your users subscribe to your page for exclusive access to your content. It could be from basic to premium subscription, having to unlock all the content accordingly.

Next I will talk about Web Monetization, a new way to monetize your creation. Your webpage can be generating money for you when Coil subscribers visit your page. First, you will need an interledger payment pointer from Uphold or Gatehub. Add the payment pointer to your page. I made an article on how to get your payment pointer from Uphold Read here. I also wrote about Coil subscription in this article.

If you are a photographer whether a pro or an amateur you can make cool money by selling photos online . There are reliable photography websites to sell your images and also have them licensed.
Check out these sites: Gettyimages, Can Stock Photo, 500px, Adobe Stock and Istock .
These are just a few of the many photography websites.

Teach Online

Do you know that teaching online can fetch you some cool cash? you don't need to be a qualified teacher to teach online. Just you, teaching what you know best and you will be amazed by the scores of people who are willing to pay for that skill.
There are so many available platforms you can use. Check these few ones: Teacheron Udemy YouTube

A few ideas shared. Feel free to drop your comments and suggestions.

Or reach out to me on Twitter

Web Monetization Pays

Michymile — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 18:45:43 +0000

I have to share this testimony. Few weeks ago I made a blog about web monetization and how content creators can generate revenue from their content. I am so excited to announce that my blog has started generating revenue with Coil subscribers visiting my page. Your web monetization revenue increases when coil subscribers visit your page.

Web monetization is still very new and not many people are on Coil subscription.

Photo from my uphold account an interledger payment pointer

Although, the amount is still small. Amounts over $ 0.02 can be claimed at anytime. Which is a step ahead of Google AdSense you don't need to wait to get $100 before you make a cash claim. Coil sends micropayment every seconds a subscriber spends on your content. Now imagine over hundred coil subscribers visiting your page.

Support Creators

Support creators by getting a Coil membership subscription. In return you will have access to all web monetized content, strong privacy protection, ads free and exclusive content.
Ensure you are using the Coil Extension in viewing the content or else, it won't count.

You can read my article on web monetization About web monetization

Read more from this site:

Webmonetization

Interledger Organization

Uphold

Gatehub
Coil
https://community.webmonetization.org/uchibeke/a-program-to-get-more-people-into-web-monetization-54j6

https://hammedbabatunde.hashnode.dev/monetizing-your-contents-as-a-content-creator

Lastly, follow me on Twitter

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

How to activate Web Monetization on Hashnode

Michymile — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 01:32:41 +0000

Web Monetization is something I stumbled on, a month ago. The first time I heard about it was at Africahacks2020 Hackathon. I got really interested and wanted to learn more, so I applied to AfricaHacks Web Monetization for the passion economy program. We are expected to submit breakthrough each week, while the first week is about sharing the secret of web monetization, hence the reason for this article.

Web Monetization is simply a way for content creators to receive payment from their users. You are only able to generate revenue when users who use web monetization access your content. In exchange, the users can get exclusive access to the content without ads etc. This way both the content creators and the users get to benefit.

I will walk you through how I activated web monetization on Hashnode . Let's go!

What you will need

A payment pointer ( Uphold , GateHub )
A Hashnode account

I used Uphold.

First, create and verify your account on Uphold . Go to your uphold dashboard and click ADD FUND, scroll down to from Interledger Payment Pointer

Copy the address

Secondly, Create an account on Hashnode . Go to your dashboard

Scroll to Integrations and click on it

Then go to Web Monetization Payment Pointer and paste in the address you copied from Uphold