As an alternative revenue stream: we at Oronjo.com feel part of the articles on a weblog could very well be sold, so we developed a special service (a 100% free).

With Oronjo.com, you can sell articles on any weblog. We host the secure part of your article, but all formatting and
functionality stays the same. You don’t need to have a PayPal or Google Checkout account or send articles manually.
And, of course, you can also sell many other digital goods.

Lisa Cremer
Oronjo.com

It is way early to declare that the Tipjoy model doesn’t work. We only have a few hundred sites using it right now.

The model where fans of content directly supporting it is not new at all. It is millennia old, and is much simpler than Ad support.

By working to improve the social side of Tipjoy, we think we can make a better service. We’ll broadcast who is supporting a piece of content, and what other content a given user supports. Think about it from the bloggers perspective: the subset of readers who think you’re good enough to support with money are your most valuable readers. They might not engage in comments, or make themselves known - but they matter.

I tend to also agree about the value of comments. I think Disqus is an amazing service. We actually use it on Tipjoy. I’d love to feed to and from the comment streams on sites that use Disqus.

I’d also like to make it easy to directly give back to commenters. Some comments are definitely tippable