There are only two types of Blogger in the world: those who need money from their blog, and those who want money from their blog. Even the most opinion-based, radical, freedom-of-speech-loving Blogger won’t turn down a few dollars that let him or her grab an extra cup of coffee, spend time on an extra blog entry, or buy the snazzy domain name they’ve been wanting. To make the process of getting that spare change easier, Google has created an official “tip jar” gadget that lets users accept money from Google Checkout.
The gadget is a simple, attractive button accompanied by the words “support my blog.” Users can then enter how much they want to donate and push “Support” at the bottom, using Google Checkout (and thus any of Google Checkout’s accepted methods of payment) to send money along. On the Blogger’s side, it’s just a touch more complicated to implement.
First, uers will need to set up a merchant account through Google Checkout. Then they will need to go to the Settings tab and enable the “My company will only post digitally signed carts” setting. From there, you’ll go into the Blogger Page Elements section (the same one you’d use to add any other gadget), and use the standard “Add a Gadget” option. You then select the “Support My Blog” gadget and customize the colors and settings, then add your Merchant ID from Google Checkout.
Users who want to see an example can visit this demo page set up by the Blogger team.
[via the Blogger Buzz]
