Google To Offer Micropayments To News Sites 155
CWmike writes "Google is promoting a payment system to the newspaper industry that would let Web surfers pay a small amount for individual news stories, an idea that could help publishers struggling with the impact of the Internet. The plans were revealed in a document Google submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), which had solicited ideas for how to monetize content online, a task some publishers have had difficulty with. 'The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants,' Google said in the document. Google said it had no specific products to announce yet."
Good luck with that one .... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not going to work in a "cut-n-paste email" world.
I like it (Score:5, Interesting)
Much like the moderation system on Slashdot, I will use my "mod points" sparingly.
Specifically to the non-retarded journalists that can use a fucking spell checker, actually look for glaring grammatical mistakes, and just plain, what-are-you-blind-?-fuck-ups.
If I am going to pay for a news article I want it to be written so well the words feel like "wiping my ass with silk".
Ohhh, and I want to be able to take back money from journalists who write anything about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and their respective twats.
P.S - A *very* important feature. I want a checkbox that says, "at no time will your money ever go to Rupert Murdoch".
Maybe I'm the Only One (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me start by paying nothing for this one
and I guess your sentiment will be echoed by a lot of people. All we can really do is let the industry die and THEN see if it is so valuable that it needs resurrecting. The fact that newspaper conglomerates keep harping on about how necessary they are for the proper functioning of democracy means nothing to me without evidence and I'm afraid the only evidence that counts is a failed industry followed by a failed democracy. I don't see the later happening any time soon (well no more than is already the case!).
Google needs news sites to be profitable (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't you already pay? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm presuming Google is proposing is the papers sign up for the service, that the user "pays" via a google account, and that google provide the smarts to say "OK newspaper, we've received a few micro payments for you, and when we've got a critical mass of a few thousand we'll put through a single transaction and reimburse you". Google will take a cut, the paper will get micropayments which traditionally has been too hard a nut for them to crack, and we get either nickel and dimed to death or we get to pay a fair price for our reporting.
Ultimately I assume the market will decide, and poor reporting will result in poor sales, but I'm in an optimistic mood today.
Re:I like it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good luck with that one .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there could be an easy solution for that: Pay-as-you-Go Micropayments. Charge your Google account with $10, spend that, a penny every few clicks, charge it again.
Now the charging part could turn out to be a bit trickier. Ideally, you'd pay cash for a gift card, use that and be totally safe. Unfortunately, making and selling the physical cards isn't free, so this may or may not happen anytime soon. I'm guessing they'll take credit cards to fill you up. There's always Visa/Mastercard gift cards (non-personal, check with your local Mall) as well as Prepaid credit cards (personal, check with your Bank or credit card institution). Pretty safe, too.
In the end, even if you'd be paying directly from a real credit card, you can always cancel charges.
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
If it were only that simple, I always thought I should support the sites I look at byt not disabling the ads with an ad blocker, but lately it's been pretty much impossible to look at most news sites I go to as all those flash ads causes my browser and computer to crawl. Yes, bit old computer (Athlon - 64 3000+) but I shouldn't have to update my bloody computer just to be able to read some web pages!
So, in the end, I installed Adblock and everythiong jsut works! fantastic! I am still allowing ads on slashdot to show though as it's not enough of them to cause too much harm.
Anyway, if they made flash less intrusive when it comes to CPU hogging I'd appily live with it, but now it's pretty much a joke
Re:I like it (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah I doubt it. Considering News sites generate ALOT of traffic (Heard a rumour its second only to pornography, but thats just a rumour) they could charge 1 penny a page and still make a killing.
Re:Great idea! (Score:1, Interesting)
*cough*
No offense, but my experience with my local indie weekly (which I don't run, but do read) differs.
My local indie weekly (the 11th hour, Macon, Ga) has become known for running better, more in depth investigative journalism and honest reporting than the local "real" paper (the Macon Telegraph, may its cowardly editors burn in hell for the things they haven't had the guts to print).
In fact, the investigation into our human trafficking issues in my town was largely due to a really scathing piece of investigative journalism that the 11th hour did, which basically put egg all over the local police force for failing to do their job and made them get off their asses more out of embarrassment than anything else.