There’s a lot of talk going on today about adding ‘tip jars’ to lenses. The mechanics behind it are basically adding a link to your paypal account asking for donations.

From a technical standpoint, adding some kind of personal donation or ‘tip jar’ to your lenses is definitely possible. However, from a ‘money making’ view, they are a terrible idea.

1) Brand Destruction - Any lenses you are building to build up any kind of personal branding or authority is automatically cheapened with the addition of something like a tip jar on a site that is free to use. If you are trying to establish yourself as an expert or authority in a topic, begging for charity doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in you.

2) Free Platform - Some blogs out there have ‘tip jars’ instead of advertising on their sites to ask their readers to help pay for hosting, etc. In that environment, I can see the point, especially if they don’t want to carry advertising for some personal reason. however, squidoo lenses DO have advertising and the DON’T have a cost associated with them.

3) Trying to make more money? - There are a TON of ways to make money using squidoo, I usually find a new one about every week. By definition, if you provide value to visitors, you will be able to earn a return on providing that value. I don’t see how tip jars can be seen as anything but a destroyer of value when used within the context of a Squidoo lens or any other free publishing platform out there. If you are at a loss of ways to make money with lenses, stop by the chat room or SquidU or read the old posts on this blog. There are a ton of ideas out there that you can adapt to your own goals, skills, and needs.

Sure, a ‘tip jar’ may sound easy, but if you think about it a bit, the negatives far outweigh the positives that can be had.

What do you think? Tip jar or no tip jar?