Fountain and ZEBEDEE Upgrade Podcasting with Listen to Earn and Pay-per-Minute Streaming

ZEBEDEE, the financial services company revolutionizing how money moves through games and apps, and Fountain, the Value for Value podcasting platform where listeners and podcasters get rewarded for the value they provide for others, today announced they have entered into a partnership and integrated bi-directional money streaming into the Fountain app.

When the word “payments” comes up, few people think of anything fun or exciting. But ZEBEDEE and Fountain are proving that bringing enhanced payments features to a podcast app can be a game changer for both listeners and creators. With this new integration, the Fountain app doesn’t just stream audio, it streams money seamlessly alongside it, in both directions. This means listeners can support creators by paying for content per-minute as they listen to it. When you stop listening, the money stream stops and you only pay for what you’ve actually listened to.

Perhaps more excitingly, the integration works the other way around as well, as Fountain users will earn money for their first hour of daily podcast listening. Additionally, creators and brands can promote their podcast episodes, short highlight clips or ads, which streams money to the listener per-minute and comes with larger earnings than the general first daily hour reward. This means users get paid for listening to content they enjoy, while creators get a very efficient way to get in front of an interested audience.

Promoting a podcast episode with Listen to Earn is much more efficient than traditional advertising, not only because it is a more direct interaction with the listener, but also because the money is streamed per-minute and stops when the user stops listening. So creators will only pay for true fans that want to listen to their content, as opposed to running ads that cost the same even if the user doesn’t end up listening to the podcast and becoming a fan.

Making this kind of instant money streaming in both directions work seamlessly is no small feat – which is where ZEBEDEE comes in. Their platform allows payments as small as a fraction of a cent to be sent to anyone in the world instantly and with near-zero fees. This is not technically possible with traditional money, which is why ZEBEDEE uses Bitcoin as its payment rail. But while both Fountain and ZEBEDEE use Bitcoin as their form of money, users don’t need to know anything about cryptocurrencies to use the system, as ZEBEDEE supports both simple credit and debit card Top Ups for those looking to spend, as well as easy Cash Out options for what the users have earned, including the ability to shop for 5000+ gift cards inside the ZEBEDEE app.

Listening to your favorite podcast, earning some money for it, and then immediately being able to spend it on a gift card, to pay your bills, or send it to anyone in the world is a powerful combo. “This type of Value for Value exchange is the future of content creation,” says Oscar Merry, CEO and Founder at Fountain. “A few years from now, we’ll look back at when we paid subscriptions for content platforms that aren’t related to how much we actually use those platforms and laugh at how basic and inefficient it was. The new system we’ve set up with ZEBEDEE is so much more efficient and fair for everyone involved.”

“With this partnership, we’re supporting a brand new type of business model and economic activity, not just for the payments space, but in general,” says Ben Cousens, Chief Strategy Officer at ZEBEDEE. “When money moves as seamlessly as information, or in this case, audio, it just opens up a world of possibilities, and we’re happy to be pioneering what that means in the podcasting space alongside Fountain.”

The Fountain app already features all podcasts available on other apps like Spotify or Apple Music, since these are pulled from RSS feeds. All podcasters and other audio content creators have to do to start earning on Fountain is claim their show and ask their audience to support them! And if they want to get more fans, they can do it more efficiently than ever using Fountain’s new ZEBEDEE-powered promotions feature.

To get started, simply get the Fountain app, listen to any podcast to start earning Bitcoin, then connect your ZEBEDEE app and see first-hand how payments can make a fun experience even more engaging, interesting and worthwhile.

About ZEBEDEE

ZEBEDEE is the leading FinTech and next-generation payment processor for the gaming industry, backed by global VCs and gaming studios including Initial Capital, Lakestar, Kingsway Capital, The Raine Group and Square Enix. Its sophisticated tools enable developers to create real economies in video games for players and communities. ZEBEDEE erases the boundaries between real and virtual worlds by powering instant global payments of any size for any game, site or application through the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Learn more about ZEBEDEE and the benefits it brings to developers and gamers alike at zebedee.io.

About Fountain

Fountain is the podcast app that pays. Every minute you spend consuming or creating content increases the value of the platform you’re using yet none of them reward you for it. Fountain is different. On Fountain you can earn bitcoin simply by listening to your favourite podcasts and sharing clips of the best moments. You can also support the podcasts you love by sending sats, which helps drive discovery of content that is actually worth listening to. To find out more, visit fountain.fm