Developer update #4 — Collectors

The thing that always has been and always will be Flattr, is the action of flattring. You might think this refers to clicking the button, but it actually does not. For quite some time has the most flattrs been done through automatic flattring. This is the future of Flattr and it’s time to explain why.

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I am old[/caption]

The button was a technical solution to a problem, the problem of “How to flattr”. What we really wanted to do was something simpler, but we did not manage to do so, partly because we lacked the API when we launched Flattr. The solution we went with was a button that creators placed near their content. Great then, but not as great today.

The idea of the button is over 6 years old and since then the internet landscape has changed drastically. Today fewer people host their own content, instead they use third party content sites like YouTube or Flickr. This is a problem for us since very few of these services lets it’s users add Javascript, which our button requires. The result is that many creators can’t use the Flattr at all.

With the new Flattr it’s time to make the automatic Flattrs take the front seat and show that the button is just one way of flattring, not the way.

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I am new[/caption]

Introducing Collectors
The simplest way of Flattring. The new Flattr is going to be a more automatic place and we will help to enable the best way for you to flattr what you want via Collectors.

There are several collectors already in action, right now they are hidden amongst the “Apps”. Apps does though contain a multitude of different things. The collectors will be hand picked great ways of collecting what you want to flattr displayed as core component of the new Flattr system.