Google Plans Tools to Help News Media Charge for Content
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
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Google is planning to roll out a system of micropayments within the next year and hopes that newspapers will use it as they look for new ways to charge users for their content.
The revelation was made in a document that Google sent to the Newspaper Association of America in response to a request for paid-content proposals that the association sent to several technology companies.
The Google document, which was first publicized by the Nieman Journalism Lab, indicates that the micropayment system will be an extension of Google Checkout, a payment system that Google rolled out in 2006 and positioned as a competitor to eBay’s PayPal service, the leading system for online payments.
“While currently in the early planning stages, micropayments will be a payment vehicle available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” Google wrote. “The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants and over time.”
Ten other companies responded to the association’s request, including Microsoft, I.B.M. and Oracle. But Google’s plans are particularly interesting because of the delicate relationship between the newspaper industry and the company.
In the document, Google said that newspapers could also use Checkout to charge for subscriptions, but it described the system for managing the subscriptions as “fairly rudimentary.”
Newspapers have been grappling with an industrywide financial crisis that has devastated many dailies. The industry is trying to find new ways to earn revenue, and several publishers are evaluating ways to charge for content.
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