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favorcompany | #favor | 334 views | on 11/10/11 |

Company

Favor Company Inc. (Y-2311144-0) is a start-up company from Rovaniemi, Finland. It was found to launch the Favor internet service. The company is found in January 2010, but planning the project was started already in autumn 2009.

The stakeholders in the company are Jaakko Saarenketo and Stina Varkkola. Both of them studies Audiovisual mediaculture in the University of Lapland, but are now focused on working as a fulltime entrepreneurs. Also software engineer student Joni and few software engineer interns are participating in building up Favor.

During spring 2011 law students Anna and Janita joined the team. Some coding and consultant services are bought from KovaKoodarit company.

The Service

Great media creates applause, discussion, support and value. With Favor, all those will also pay the artist’s rent.

Favor is a platform for publishing, and it will be found from www.favor.org. Favor is found also from Facebook and Twitter.

Favor is a solution to this problem: if all media is free and easy to access in the internet, how can the artist bring home the bacon?

Contents – Do yourself a favor

You can add any content to Favor for free. It can be pictures, videos, blogs, music...any kind of internet contents. These contents are called favors; quality content is always a favor to the world.

Every Favor page (meaning the content) gets its own link that can be spread via Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, you name it. Who wouldn’t want their piece of mind to be seen!

The loader of the content can deside for themselves what format to use with the content. For example, is it a video that you can stream in favor window, is it possible to load to your own computer or is it available only as a .torrent file.

Favors can be modified by using the styling tools, changing the backround and other visual details.

Favors are open for everyone to see, without paying or registering. Favor is usable with almost all common browsers.

Why does it cost?

The payment is to prevent the so usual twaddle in the internet: if your comment is not worth paying $0,10 maybe it is not worth publishing at all. By buying and paying your comment you give it the value it deserves.

The payment is also thanking for the content, meaning the favor. If you experienced something spectacular, you'll be happy to pay for it. It is like applauding in the internet. The payment is also the price for the content (music, picture, video...) you experienced in Favor.

The amount of payment is also a way to evaluate your internet status; in the world of web you are only what your profile is. The target and the amount of your returned favors gives you a certain kind of profile as a Favor user. For example, if your Return the Favor is the most valuable, you are propably the biggest fan of the artist. In the other hand also the biggest hater of the artist can be the most visible. In that case even the negative comments are most welcome, since the artist gets the payment anyway.

Even if only few of the visitors returns the favor, every visitor brings more value to the content by effecting the statistics.

Favor is a great tool for advertising.

Companies and other parties are in the same line with any other users; companies can create an account and make favors and Return the Favors. Like a private user also a company can earn money via Favor.

Users are responsible of taking care of their own tax issues.

In Favor it is possible to advertise at a very low cost, compared to usual banner advertisement. You can decide the amount you use to return the favor, and making a favor is totally free.

In Favor it is possible to create a very specific advertisement campaign. Favor is collecting metadata from all (registered and unregistered) users. This data is available in each Favor pages frame, and some of it is possible to order as RSS feed.

Competitors

There is no other service like Favor to manage the free media and internets payment walls. The subject is anyhow very current, and there are some applications offering payment services. Perhaps one of the most intresting example of customer oriented pricing is Humble Indie Bundle service that concentrates on sharing games. The games were sold by the price the customer was ready to pay, and the service collected 1,8 million dollars in only couple of weeks. This is a good example of how free pricing and fair selling can work efficiently.

The other example is the Kickstarter project, where you can sponsor different intresting art projects.

Paying

You can load money to your Favor Wallet with PayPal, credit cards or online bank service. Moneytransfer and electrical identification is hosted by Suomen Verkkomaksut Oy ("Finlands Web Payments").

We look into SMS-payments as well.

The money is transferred between Favor Wallets and movement of the money is done as real time as possible. The earned money is usable inside the service, and it’s possible to reclaim after verifying your identity (CFU-status).

In the Terms of Service all content creators will agree to be a seller of digital product. At the same time they agree on giving 10% of all transactions to Favor Company Inc. for administrating expences.

These terms do not obligate the seller (content creator) to any action, it is merely a procedure for value added tax. We have consulted law office Borenius ltd. in all tax related issues to make sure everything happens legally and righteous. Also Anna and Janita are working on all the law issues.

Favor is launched in english from the beginning, since it is ment to be an international and comprehensive service.

Supporters

Favor Company Inc. has got project money from Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.

Publishing

At spring 2011 Favor beta version was launched. That was used for testing the secure and certain money transfer. The public version was published on wednesday 22nd of June 2011.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information!

Stina and Jaakko

Favor Company Oy

Favor Company