Blendle micropayments platform to launch in US
Blendle’s expansion into its first English-language market comes as publishers are looking for new ways to make money online and ward off the threat to digital revenues from adblocking.
“The experiment is about how we get people to pay for news,” said Alexander Klöpping, who co-founded the company in the Netherlands in 2012 with Marten Blankesteijn, a fellow former journalist.
“It’s important that we create alternatives, that publishers get extra sources of revenue,” Mr Klöpping added. “We’ve seen in Holland and Germany that people will pay, but it needs to be super easy.”
Blendle expanded to Germany in September and counts 550,000 registered users in Europe, more than half under the age of 35. It has struck deals with publishers including Axel Springer, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Der Spiegel publisher Spiegel-Verlag to sell their content on its platform in Europe.
Blendle did not say which publishers it has lined up to participate in the US, but the Washington Post confirmed it would be on the platform. The New York Times said it was “in active discussions with Blendle regarding the US”.
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