Hey Google
samonsoftware.com
samonsoftware.com
1) Payments are aggregated at macro-scales so that the service can efficiently run on top of the legacy payments infrastructure without leaking double-digit percentages in interchange fees.
2) End users are never prompted for credentials or to authorize a payment. They get a frictionless experience which feels exactly like clicking a regular link in their browser. In surveys, most don't understand they are not clicking a regular link in their browser, which is exactly the way Google likes it.
3) End users aren't actually charged money (they pay with attention), so there is no need to pay customer support drones to deal with disputes over 3 cent line-items, like there is if you e.g. have disputes between workers and clients on Amazon Turk.
4) Prices are computed by Google automatically in real time, which means vendors don't need to try to maintain revenue maximizing price points for Chilean visitors using Firefox to an article about dog washing.
5) Google's micropayment service solved the marketplace chicken-and-egg problem by Google using it on their own page first -- one of the most popular on the Internet, letting buyers sign up for Google, and then let other publishers use it on their pages and automatically tap into the buyers already signed up by Google.
This ridiculously successful service probably sucks all the life out of the market for sub-$1 micropayments. (I would never have expected $1 ~ $10 micropayments to work well, either, but Zynga et al have pretty decisively proven me wrong in the last few years.)
It'd be nice if they would make it possible to pay them a chunk of money that they'll distribute to places I visited in more or less the same way they do with ad money now, only I wouldn't have to see the ads.
Sort of what Flattr is doing, only automated.
Hey Google
You used to be a toolmaker. You used to be all about organising information. What happened ?
Forget competing with Facebook and go make some amazing new tools.
Creating a successful social networking site is like starting a successful new nightclub, it isn’t about solving problems it’s about being cool, and being cool ain’t what you’re about.
You’ve got cash and smart people so go invent some bad-ass new tool to take on a really big problem.
Google PagePay
Micro-payments, so bloggers can charge half a cent (or pence if you roll that way) for someone to read a full post.
Mirco-payments would change the world, a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t monetizable would become monetizable, a whole bunch of people would be able to get paid for doing what they love.
Solve the "I love to do it but I can’t get paid for it problem".
Google Cred (ibility)
Use your mad data props and data mining skillz to record and assess predictions made by pundits and public ‘experts’.
Google can tell me what I want to know it’s time it helped me work out who was worth listening to.
"Won’t added accountability cause people to be less likely to make public predictions ???" Good, if it causes people with back predictive powers to stop talking as if they were experts that’s a win.
And how great is it going to be to find out that the most reliable economic predictor didn’t go to standford, it’s some guy who no one has ever heard of who runs a beans farm in some out of the way place.
Solve the "Who do I listen to" problem.
Like Facebook Questions vs. Quora, Google Places vs. Yelp, etc. It's hard to compete with behemoths.
A "like" button that transfers money to the content producer with minimal UI interference would be a nice thing to try and google is the ideal company to experiment with this.
I agree.
>> Micro-payments, so bloggers can charge half a cent (or pence if you roll that way) for someone to read a full post.
Micropayments dream, again? ;-) Didn't that failed every time it was tried?
And, if someone made a correct prediction in the past, it does not mean he will in the future. Life is great because amongst other things it can take you by complete surprise.
Anyway, that hardly would be on the list of "problems". And google is mainly a service provider than a tool maker. The main service which is search and advertising both of which have plenty of problems which would significantly improve people's life way above predictions. If they solve the many problems of search I would be way happier than if they told me in some sort of big brother way who said what when and why he was wrong and who is right and who should I believe and...
Just keep your feet to the ground google. The world is not yours to occupy, you know mighty empires have tried and failed. Just retain your focus if you may.
As for the micro payments, I was doing some data analysis yesterday and it does come to 0.5 cent per user from advertising revenue. So requesting micro payments might be an annoyance by requiring logging in at all times, etc. Even if the system was so as to not disturb me at all, I would rather not have to pay 0.5 cent. It seems nothing of course, but god knows how many articles I read a day. Especially since the web master hardly would gain much. It might be perhaps a good idea to be an alternative for the user to choose a non ad version of a site and pay 0.5c to do so. I doubt it would catch on though. The internet wants to and needs to be free. Its popularity and usefulness is dependent on the free consumption of information supported by advertising.
Now, google could of course lower the share it gets from ads on sites, I mean, they have a really high profit margin and it is a little bit selfish of them.