The TES Bookshop and TES Nursery World Bookshop sell selected titles on education and professional child care, respectively. Rosetta Stone's Guy Spriggs says that for this application, the system was designed to send a short e-mail message to a sales administrator each time someone buys a book. As new microtransactions technology hits the market this year, publishers can more efficiently sell online information and content. One nice example of selling information is demonstrated by the Australian Financial Review 's Trading Room financial information service. Currently, the payment mechanism is a bit clunky.
Users create an account and charge an amount to their credit cards.
As they use the system and purchase information goods, money is deducted from their account. A nice microtransactions system melded onto this site would add to its appeal. Publishers don't need to be big to benefit from e-commerce. Money is collected via a secure online order page on the Web. When I knew that I had to do a presentation on online transactions at the Atlanta conference, I went out looking for examples of e-commerce initiatives at news sites.