Google One Pass

[BB Bobcat]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20032217-1.html

The day after Apple officially shared details of its new App Store subscription plan, which lays the groundwork for Apple to take a 30-percent cut from publishers who sell content within their apps, Google announced the launch of Google One Pass, its online charging service for newspapers and magazines. Google's rival service offers two big differences from Apple's: content providers will get to keep 90 percent of revenue from One Pass sales and publishers will retain control of consumer data.

Outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who becomes Google's executive chairman in April, announced Google One Pass in a speech at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Such an online payment system had been rumored for months, but Google obviously timed its announcement to promote the fact that its terms are more favorable--and flexible--to publishers than Apple's.

Schmidt said One Pass will initially be available to publishers in the UK, US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, with a plan to expand further in the future.

With Google taking 10 percent of transactions and allowing publishers to control the consumer data they gather (something Apple has been unwilling to do), this sets the stage for how much it's appropriate for market makers like Google and Apple to skim from sales sold through their systems, which offer companies access to millions of customers.

As the appetite and market for content friendly mobile devices like smartphones and tablets continues to grow at a sharp pace, the stakes are very high and things could get ugly as friction develops between content providers and Apple, with Google doing its best to drive a wedge between the two. So far companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, have yet to comment on Apple's new subscription terms, but they will most likely use Google's rival service as a bargaining chip going forward.

Anyone think we may be approaching a day where paying for content becomes a little more palatable for readers?

Seems like aggregating the billing and sign-in procedures would help, so people who already have accounts with this or the Apple thing can just click away and get billed later, rather than having to sign up and give payment info individually for stuff.

Or not.

 

[mustangj17]

I can only imagine how big my bill would be. I read all day long. It would be good for news sites but not for me.

 

[Turtle Wexler]

I can only imagine how big my bill would be. I read all day long. It would be good for news sites but not for me.

Yeah, as a reader I'm already getting a little cranky with the NYT.

But as a publishing employee, this sounds like a decent idea. I used to spend a ton of money on magazines; I assume those funds would be diverted to something like this.

Also: Remember how those of us who used Napster said people would never pay for music?

 

[RickStain]

Color me optimistic that this can work as a funding model.

 

[Hoos3725]

I know Media General has already jumped in the Google One Pass boat. I'm not sure how close they are to actually charging for anything, though.

I was under the impression this had to do more with apps for smart phones and tablet computer than it did websites.

 

[wicked]

Any news here? It's been almost a year now ... cruised over to this board for the first time in a while, and I'd totally forgotten about this.

 

[lantaur]

I don't know who uses Google One Pass, but according to this (http://www.semissourian.com/story/1804911.html) it is unable to integrate databases in its system. One of the comments in this story also notes there seemed to have been a lot of bugs in the Google One Pass system.

Not sure how invested Google is in newspapers anymore. I was discouraged that they basically gave up on putting up old newspapers and totally changed (i.e. made worse) their news archive.