I am the creator of the Propster donation site. Here's my idea.
Imagine you read a very helpful thread on some forum, say Hacker News, and a guy with nickname Jack123 wrote something helpful. So you want to write something like: "Thanks Jack, that really helped me". The problem with this is that Jack can't do much with your "thank you". To make it more of a real thank you you could write:
"Thanks Jack, here is a 0.1 bitcoin for you, you saved me a day of work. Email me at
x@y.com so I can give it to you."
But, obviously, it's not the internet way. How about this:
"Thanks Jack, a $abc cookie for you"
What is $abc ? Well, Jack googles it, he would find a page:
propster.me/$abc
(this obviously doesn't exist now). A visitor to this page will be asked to claim this cookie, by providing the following info:
- url of the page that the cookie was mentioned (news.ycombinator.com/...)
- his nickname as it appears on that page (Jack123)
- his contact email or bitcoin address
He is then instructed to add a comment on that page with words:
"Thanks for $abc".
Because I have created the $abc cookie in advance, I'm its owner. I am now being contacted by the Propster system with notification that Jack123 wants to pick up my gift.
To help me verify that it is really Jack contacting me, I am presented with the screenshot of the part of the site with the thank you comment. I know it is really Jack123 who is claiming it and I click Approve. At this point a verified communication channel between Jack123 and me is established, and the exact delivery of money is straightforward (bitcoin, tip jar etc).
If someone else is reading the same comment, and likes it as well, he can chip-in to the $abc cookie, by going to propster.me/$abc and adding money to it.
The verification step that Jack is Jack can be streamlined for particular hub sites. For StackExchange, all that is required of Jack is to sign-in with his StackExchange id (since StackExchange is an openid provider). For other hub sites and forums the verification can involve asking Jack to modify his profile page by adding a particular string to it (ex: his new Propster bitcoin address). Then, that could be automatically checked. If twitter account is known (from the profile page), all is required is a twit with a certain string.
Obviously there can be many cookies, all in the form of a dollars sign and three letters. This gives a lot of possibilities to start, then the length can be extended. Every cookie is created and owned by a Propster user. Basically, it is a token that, once you create it, you can go around and give to people you wanna thank.
The actual amount of money delivered is dependent on the Propster user settings, not with the cookie itself. Cookie is only a token to get two people to connect.
