Favor is a open publishing platform where users can post any kind of media to their feed. There’s not much difference between difference between it and your standard microblogging platform, but their main difference lies in their commenting system. If you want to comment on (or just reward) the media, you must pay at least $0.10, with 90% of the proceeds going directly to the content producer.
Doing so also gives you the opportunity to comment underneath the media, where you could just comment, criticize, or even advertise. Paying more money puts you at the top of the comments, providing an incentive system to give more to the content producer. While Favors are seen as just a nice thing to do for content producers, another way to look at them is a direct line to advertising space under some popular content.
I imagine the company might see some content growth just for the hypothetical payout that content producers can receive from posting content to the site. While Flattr buttons are becoming more common across the web, it would seem almost in bad taste to directly charge for comments on your own website. But on a purely capitalist platform like Favor, it’s the law of the land I suppose.
But still, what draws people back to their content is a sense of community, which is somewhat destroyed with even the mental cost of $0.10 a post.
Favor sees their service as an interesting way to monetize comics, and just presented at the Arctic Comics Festival in Kemi, Finland. A comic contest was also run on their platform, with the winner being whoever could generate the most interest through the platform.
Favor is based in Rovaniemi, Finland, and is partly financed with assist of the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.
