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Buy Me a Beer Wordpress Plugin

written by John Chow on May 24th, 2007

Ankesh Kothari just released new WordPress plugin that allows my blog readers to buy me a beer via PayPal.

The plugin adds a “Buy Me a Beer” button to your sidebar and at the bottom of every post. When your readers click on the button, they are taken to the secure PayPal page so they can donate money for your drinking habits. For people who prefer non-alcoholic drinks, there is a setting to replace the beer mug with a coffee cup.

I haven’t given donation as an online moneymaking method much thought. However, I do know that it can be a viable source of revenue. Steve Pavlina has stated more than once that his second biggest income source, after Google AdSense, is donations from readers. Ankesh has been testing the buy me a beer plugin on his blog. The results so far are:

5800 unique visitors. 3 people bought me a beer (Total $11). Not much, but still more than what AdSense pays me for that same blog.

Ankesh can add another $7.50 to that total because I just brought him a pitcher for the plugin. It’ll be interesting to see if any readers will buy me a beer. I’m really thirsty. Please buy me a beer!

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  1. I’m betting at least $300 towards this month’s revenue will come from this.

  2. vik

    John, I would buy you beer but I’m afraid you’re going to go for that “sissy” Smirnoff. I cannot have my money go to waste like that.

    Promise me that you’ll drink a real man brand of beer and I’ll buy forthwith :razz:

  3. I got an email from him too about the beer. I think I’ll put it on mine also! Beers anyone ;-)

  4. JC you’re evil making a post about something that is controversial. Now people will comment on this and we’ll have a good discussion going….

    He’s so evil and we can’t do anything to stop him!

  5. You should take it off the contact form page. It appears at the very top of the page and looks really off.

    I’m interested to see what you can bring in with this puppy.

    Good luck John!

  6. Ankesh Kothari is the one who deserves the beer :twisted:

  7. Is it that crap Canadian beer?! :evil:

  8. i bought him a beer – for that Google Supplemental post earlier. Three bucks isnt going to kill me.

  9. John I think you made enough money last month to buy us beers instead!

  10. I agree with Amanda. Buy us some beer!

  11. Tob

    haha, should be.. “Can I buy you a beer, send me your paypal email here”

  12. I gotcha John…enough for the both of us

  13. Actually it’s nothing else than a donation link and I’m quite sure that I’ve already seen it somewhere :???:

  14. I love that idea…I have a regular donate button but this would be soo much cooler. Too bad it’s for wordpress and not blogger.. :cry:

  15. What’d be REALLY sweet is if he actually made some videos of him drinking the beer that people donated. might be dangerous but entertaining.

  16. John, if every suscriber gives you a beer, when you will post agani?

  17. if people donate to john.. will they donate to someone like me?

    Worth a shot huh? I could always use extra money to help pay bills etc.

    Who couldn’t use the help?

  18. Tob

    No, even a better idea… use the beer money to start hosting local pub nights for marketing brainstorming and business ideas.. this would be great and Id make the trek to vancouver for one!

    this would also solidify readership in my opinion.

  19. I want to see pictures of John actually drinking these beer though :) That would be a great addition to the restaurant reviews.

  20. Is there a girl version with a Long Island Iced Tea?

    • if you dont use Wordpress, all you need to do is substitute john’s email address in the URL with your own paypal email. then anchor it with “Long island iced tea” on your own blog. nice blog design you have there.

      have a look at the url that john is using – its pretty straightforward to incorporate that using href tags into your own blog , no matter what the platform.
      (i’ve done it in blogger)

      unlike john, my buy me a beer doesnt appear at the bottom of every post. but i have it as a blob on the top right.

  21. It’s just a mildly modified “Donation” button that you can get directly from PayPal. You could have very easily created a custom version yourself.

    • but everyone is “adsense blind” to those donate buttons.

      being more upfront with the “buy me a beer” idea is much better. its more eye catching. but no doubt , it wont last long – i’d give it about 3 months until we all get “adsense blind” to the buy-me-a-beer meme.

    • Is it possible to modify it so it can be used in other blogs other than wordpress?

      • if you dont want it at the end of EVERY blogpost, then yeah. its just a hyperlink. swap out john’s paypal email address for your own and your good to go.

        i’m on the blogger platform, and i have it on the top right. just click on my url to see it.

  22. Yeah, John looks like a lightweight…

  23. Hope you are thirsty sir, I just sent over a full pitcher! Enjoy! :mrgreen:

  24. Actually, I never gave much thought to accepting donations, but I tried it and guess what? I made triple the amount in donations than I did in Adsense this month!

    So, it does work!

  25. Beer on me, my friend. Enjoy :grin:

  26. WOW – Thank you! This coffee mug goes so nicely with the coffee yahoo smiley I just got ~o) :lol:

  27. The buy me a beer thing is nothing new. There’s a script for it too.
    http://www.buy-me-a-drink.com/

    Speaking of beer, we haven’t seen a food review in ages.

  28. BlastYourAss.com

    Most excellent of an idea and will fit perfect with my community dude. I love when I can come get cools ideas and exploit them for my own beer drinking gains!

  29. Great plugin I have implemented it on my blog too. Lets see if i get any beer buyers.

  30. It’s a good thing you switched from Smirnoff Ice.

  31. As long as you don’t buy an O’Doul’s.

  32. felixooi

    John

    I would like to buy you a BEER but i dun ave Paypal. In Malaysia, we dun get to CASH out from paypal.

    Darn

  33. He emailed me too about it. I may add one as a lot of my readers said they’d buy me a beer.

    My donations page was similarly themed towards the amber nectar though ;)

    http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk/donations/

  34. thats interesting…it will be nice to know how this performs

  35. If nothing else i see this as great motivation for college students to start a blog. It would have gotten me started sooner.

  36. You and me both, Matt.

  37. cool,sounds interesting.

  38. All this buzz for beer — looks like the plug-in is giving you more than just free booze, John, great thinking!

  39. Dont get drunk with all this beer.i gonna start “Buy me a Glass of Wine” since now i need a diet.:)

  40. Do you need a Business Paypal account for this to work?

  41. Thanks for the post John.I installed the coffee version and I am waiting to see how it works.

  42. I changed the icon to a martini glass, I’m not a fan of beer.

  43. I wonder if there is an e-gold version?

  44. I think it’s time that I got my buzz on! I really think this is a give to receive type plug in. Let’s see if anyone want to buy me some coffee’s or beer!

  45. This is a cool idea/plugin but it’s not to hard to just add a paypal link to your template. I usually prefer to do that instead of adding more and more plugins to my sites.

  46. But from the creator’s perspective, this was genius. This plugin has generated a ton of buzz and I’m sure a ton of links for him.

Trackbacks

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