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Piano Media

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Piano Media based in Bratislava, Slovakia, is a subscription-based media content payment system started on May 2, 2011.

Founded by partners in Etarget, a Slovak-based targeted online media advertising company, and NextBig, a Czech-Slovak new media consultancy company, Piano Media provides major media publishers in Slovakia with a secure common-payment system for digital readers.

With Piano, participating publications place all, or a portion, of their content behind a pay-wall for a €2.90 flat-fee. Piano’s users receive unlimited access to all participating publications, similar to a cable TV package model. User payments are split between publications according to how much time each user spends on an individual site.

Nine major Slovak publishers are participating in the first-wave of the project. These participants include Slovakia’s most popular news portal, all three national daily broadsheet newspapers, two highly influential Slovak magazines and two online video services.

Publishers choose what content is put behind the pay-wall and what benefits users will receive. Some publishers provide ad-free versions of their content, while other offer premium access to their content before it is released to the public later in the day. Charges for discussion forums and archived articles are among other paid content options publishers provide.

Slovakia is the first market world-wide where the majority of publishers have agreed to join a common payment system. In the future Piano will offer the benefits of this concept to other single-language European markets.

Slovenia was the second country to join Piano’s system in January 2012. Nine publishers participate in the system.

In April 2012 Piano announced it had secured €2 million in a Series B growth capital round from 3TS Capital Partners’ Technology in Central and Eastern Europe Fund S.C.A. SICAR.

Milestones

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• 
  Piano Media added Michael Hull as Business Development Manager. (3/1/12)
  Posted 4/19/12 at 1:03am
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  Piano Media added Miroslav Pikus as Business to Consumer Manger. (4/1/12)
  Posted 4/19/12 at 1:03am
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  Piano Media added Peter Richards as Managing Director NE Europe. (3/1/12)
  Posted 4/19/12 at 1:03am
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  Piano Media added Veronika Pizano as Marketing Manager. (1/15/12)
  Posted 4/19/12 at 1:01am
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  Piano Media added Katarina Kalafutova as office manager. (4/1/11)
  Posted 11/1/11 at 1:07am
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  Piano Media added Jan Cifra as Business Development Manager. (9/11/00)
  Posted 10/30/11 at 3:32am
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  Piano Media added David Brauchli as Director of Communications. (4/11/00)
  Posted 10/27/11 at 11:42pm
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  Piano Media added Tomaz Slibar as Managing Director, Slovenia. (5/11/00)
  Posted 10/27/11 at 11:42pm
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  Piano Media added Valer Kot as COO. (9/11/00)
  Posted 10/27/11 at 11:37pm
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  Piano Media added Tomas Bella as CEO. (6/10/00)
  Posted 10/5/11 at 6:13am
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  Piano Media received (€2M) in Venture Round funding. (4/18/12)
  Posted 4/17/12 at 7:16pm via techcrunch.com
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  Piano Media — Piano secures €2 million in a Series B growth capital round from 3TS Capital Partners’ Technology in Central and Eastern Europe Fund S.C.A. SICAR. (4/17/12)
  Posted 4/19/12 at 12:58am via pianomedia.eu
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  Piano Media — Piano Media gets Series-A funding for European Expansion (9/29/11)
  Posted 10/27/11 at 11:45pm via pianomedia.eu
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  Piano Media — Piano's participating publishers add more content behind the pay-wall. (9/12/11)
  Posted 10/27/11 at 11:44pm via pianomedia.eu

Videos

Screenshots

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Sources

1. Shared Online Paywall Service Piano Media Secures 2 Million Euros From 3TS (techcrunch.com) [edit]
Piano Media (pianomedia.eu) [edit]
Piano Media (pianomedia.eu) [edit]
Piano Media Scales Up With €2 Million Series B Investment from 3TS Capital Partners (pianomedia.eu) [edit]