Flattr brings micropayments to conferences, lets you ‘tip a dime’ to your favorite speaker

Micropayment service Flattr is allowing people to ‘tip a dime’ to speakers or other attendees at Media Evolution’s The Conference in Sweden, in a move that makes the event ‘the first Flattr-able conference’.

Flattr is a combination of a ‘like button’ with an online tipjar that allows you to pay a small amount to people whose work you like. You choose how much you’d like to pay at the end of each month and that amount is divided equally between everyone you’ve ‘Flattred’ that month.

All speakers at The Conference, currently in progress in the city of Malmö, were invited to sign up to Flattr, allowing attendees to show their appreciation to each other or anyone who gave a talk they enjoyed.

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Flattr has already seen use in locations as diverse as on the Wikileaks website and by musicians on SoundCloud. Bringing Flattr to conferences helps take the concept into the offline world.

In the video interview here, I speak to co-founders Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson about Flattr and how it’s creating a ‘like button that actually means something’. Given Sunde’s background as one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, I also ask him whether that site and others like it still have a place when services like Spotify and Netflix allow consumers to get what they want. when they want it, legally.