Buy me a beer plugin – a cool twist on the old donate button
You might have noticed under my posts a little cup of coffee icon. I am trying out a plugin for Ankesh called “Buy Me a Beer Plugin” …
This WordPress plugin allows your readers to donate money to you via PayPal. The plugin is widget enabled.
So the idea is if a reader likes your post they might send you a couple of dollars as a tip, enough to buy you a coffee or a beer. Neat idea, eh?
Update: My small problem fixed, you can buy me a coffee again now 
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By Chris Garrett. Posted in Development
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I would liie a plug in like that for Community Server!
What a great idea! I was thinking about putting a donate button on my forum, but it just looks too cheeky from my point of view. Whereas a ‘buy me a beer’ button does not sound quite so bad.
Yes blogger needit also =)
I wonder how this might influence (OK, impair
) the path from lurker to subscriber to contributer . . . to client 1st sale . . . to 3rd sale.
It sets a tone for the relationship, doesn’t it?
Food for thought.
Good question
I guess it is one step up from reading free articles, a small tip. The law of reciprocity would probably be nullified if people feel they have “paid back” sufficiently with a coffee, on the other hand you don’t really need people to buy your stuff out of a sense of duty
Hey Chris, keep us posted on how it’s working. I wonder if it will work for multi-author blogs like Search-This? I bet I could hack it and get it to send the author of the post the donation…
I like the lighter tone to it. “Donation” sometimes sounds a bit.. formal.
Of course, the issue then arises that I don’t like beer. Or coffee.
@Mark – I am sure of it, would just need to use the author email addy rather than the one from the form
@Jeremy – Just tweak it to use an image of a slice of cake
Couple of dollars for a coffee or a beer? lol…where have you been for the last decade?
A pint of Tetleys in my local is the best part of $5. Coffee in central York is rather closer to $4.50.
Cool plugin! Thanks for the information.
Rajesh Shakya
Neat little plugin. I might just have to toss it up on my blog tonight.
Thanks for the info, Chris.
One American Dollar headed your way c/o seo ladder! I think I am going to have to put this one up on my blog as well…I am not sure if anyone will actually use it (other than myself)…but I got to feed the beer fund one way or another.
Cheers,
Chris
That is a GREAT feature…how many cups have you gotten so far?
Quite a few surprisingly, will do an update tomorrow