Flattred yet?

Last week, Flattr went from beta to full release. You don’t need an invitation for it anymore. Not that invitations were hard to get or anything. But now all you have to do is sign up. In case the buzz went past you (which, despite the coverage, is pretty likely for non-Europeans, here’s how it works, roughly: Every month, you pay a certain amount to Flattr (at least 2 Euros), then spend the rest of the month clicking your peers’ Flattr buttons. (If you don’t click any sites, the money goes to charity. Either way, it’ll go. It wouldn’t work otherwise.) At the end of the month, your ‘stock’ will be shared among all the sites you ‘flattred’. The more you clicked, the less of it they get, but that’s okay – it just means there are more people on Flattr to spread your clicks over, and they’re all spreading their 2€ just like you are. From what I hear, the beta phase has been quite successful for some sites. In Germany, some heavy bloggers and at least one major newspaper made hundreds of Euros. A lot of webcomics people use it, too, and from what I hear on Twitter, they’re very enthusiastic about flattring one another. It’s too early to say anything conclusive about the system, though several bloggers have installed it. There is a good chance Flattr will work for a lot of people, at least better than the current (advertising, tip jar, micropayment) systems. But I doubt it’ll work for everybody.