Google releases OnePass, a payment system for publishers | Hacker News Reader

Google releases OnePass, a payment system for publishers

googleblog.blogspot.com

157 pointswigginus78 comments

Quite impeccable timing on Google's part, merely days after developers and publishers are up-in-arms over Apple's 30% cut for on-device content.

Well played Schmidt, well played.

Well played Larry Page perhaps? ;)

He's not the CEO until April 1 ;)

Indeed - will be interesting to see how this pans out, especially as Google already supplies the iOS mapping application backend.

I would also add PayPal hasn't announced their micropayments a long time ago, either.

Just saw an update (towards the bottom, http://bit.ly/hY8Jig) "Huffington Post reports that publishers will keep 'in the range of 90%' of revenues from One Pass -- quite a nice bump from Apple's 70% offering."

Update: CNet's explination: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20032217-1.html

I honestly think this is something Google mashed together overnight in response to Apple's annoucement.

Look at the page. It's just an informational landing page. no breakdown of the framework, pricing or any details, and once you click the signup button, you are put on a queue for a sales rep to contact you.

I love it though. It's a great case study for startups! I think they're gauging interest with this one, simple page.. and if enough people sign-up they will actually build it over the weekend.

Well, they've been talking about it since September 2009: http://goo.gl/zYSzH

The payment angle is timely given Apple's recent moves, but am I correct in reading this as Google offering an officially sanctioned way to get paywalled content into the index?

In the past, publishers had to either offer First Click Free or resort to cloaking or other black-hat techniques for their for-pay content. If Google is now willing to allow paywall content into the index for a 3% fee then that's a big deal.

I can't imagine this pushing search results quality in the right direction, at least from the perspective of a typical user.

The payment side is powered by Google Checkout, so the fee structure smacks Apple around all over the place. The most expensive tier (under $3000 in monthly sales) is 2.9% + $0.30. The cheapest is 1.9% + $0.30.

But if your charging within your Android application " the transaction fee for in-app purchases is the same as the transaction fee for application purchases (30%). " (http://developer.android.com/guide/market/billing/index.html)

Considering OnePass was just announced and isn't shipping yet, I don't think we can know yet if it will be billed the same as Android's existing in app purchasing.

Agreed, but i read that "One Pass offers payments in mobile apps (i.e. in Android apps)" Maybe there will be a differently tiered charging system depending on the content (news content vs application specifc content like a new level for a game).

OnePass appears to be limited to the publishing industry, so there would be no new levels for a game.

The fee for One Pass is to be 10%. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12489318)

> The payment side is powered by Google Checkout, so the fee structure smacks Apple around all over the place.

Except for the part where as a vendor it's only available in half a dozen countries or so, and several major countries can not pay via Checkout either (does Checkout work at all from canada yet?), and where the customer service is non-existent (a Google constant).

Whereas PayPal and iOS App Store customer service are famously excellent?

App Store customer service IS excellent in my experience.

Excellent AND working from countless countries. Payment is one proble Apple has actually solved.

Let's check:

Google Checkout,

- Not present at all in a number of countries

- Impossible to sell from an even higher number of countries

- No customer support at all

Paypal

+ present virtually everywhere

- customer service generally considered frustrating, becomes terrible when dealing with their fraud detection

iOS AppStore

+ present in more than a hundred countries (though some parts e.g. iAd may not be available everywhere)

± customer service generally regarded as good, except when dealing with the approval process (and even that area shows progress)

>-No customer support at all

Hi, may we help? :) We also do have forums that are actively monitored.

Also if anyone is interested, checkout is present in these countries: http://goo.gl/I49QQ

Except that Google's forums don't help when Google locked five figures from you on a spiky day, continues to accept money with no way to withdraw, provides no telephone support, and offers only an (apparently overloaded) email support. (Eventually I got my account unlocked and funds released... six months later.)

Coincidentally, I've never had such a problem with Paypal. (My gripes with them generally revolve around the glacially slow history search.)

Can you sue them for interests, if not damages?

That was two years ago and it's not worth the effort. It's better just to explain the moral of my story when Paypal vs. Google Checkout debates occur: Paypal at least has a phone line.

I say this every couple of months but no one believes me: Paypal has gotten religion on business support. Fraud sucks for everybody, but they really are making AB effort on it.

I got my account auto locked when an apartment move, sales spike (Valentine's day), and large withdraw all hit at once this week. It took one call and two minutes on thhe phone to resolve. "Sorry Mr. McKenzie, we just saw an unknown individual try moving a lot of money in and out of your account and wanted to make sure it was you. You're good to go."

I'm glad they're working well for you, but I'm not working on rumours - I just spent over a week and about a dozen phone calls trying to fix a mistake they made. Eventually they did accept that the mistake was at their end, but until that point their service was appalling. To their credit, though, they did seem to take a lot of notice of the feedback form I submitted.

in contrast to what competition is offering, yes.

>Half a dozen countries? Please see the countries mentioned in this support document: http://goo.gl/I49QQ

Canada is definitely supported for users.

>Where the customer service is non-existent: Hi. Any specific problem we can help with?

Brazil?

>>Where the customer service is non-existent: Hi. Any specific problem we can help with?

In my experience, "Customer Service" can mean one or both of the following: 1. Actual help to resolve real problems 2. A human voice on the phone to walk you through resetting your computer (or otherwise generally offering moral support)

I find that most folks get nervous when #2 is not available, even if they would never use it or it would be unlikely to solve any of their actual problems.

The big G does not even pretend, and I think that is possibly to their detriment.

They need to add other payment options then CreditCards to Google Checkout. Nobody uses CreditCards in Europe and it's kinda stupid that I can't even buy Apps on the Marketplace and have see if the vendor support direct purchase form their website via PayPal or something.

What payment options would you suggest? Apple only accepts credit / debit cards too (well and gift cards which are also primarily purchased with credit cards).

Bank wire transfers, that's what everybody here does including Apple, Amazon etc.

Interesting. What country is this?

Belgium, maybe. They use bank transfers a lot (definitely not France, where bank transfers are very rare but debit cards are everywhere)

Okay I realize I shouldn't have said 'Europe', because it seems to differ quite a bit from country to country. I myself are from Germany and while its relativly easy to get a credit card from your bank, only a small minority owns one. The plastic cards, that we get from our banks are called EC-cards (for "eletronic cash") and are completly different than credit cards. They are tied to your bank account, work just like debit cards, and you can pay at every store with them. At online shops you would usually just enter your bank account number and it's directly withdrawn. So the additional monthly fee of owning a credit card is not worth it for the majority of people.

> Nobody uses CreditCards in Europe

I'm a European and I use a credit card. And I'm pretty sure it's a billion dollar industry in my country alone.

If not credit cards, then what do Europeans use?

Sane wire transfers, direct debit, and a multitude of other things. Credit cards are on the rise though.

On the other hand, even debit cards are usually called credit cards, at least in france (either that or "carte bleue" which is the french standard for these things).

In France at least, credit card are far more often used than wired transfer etc.

> Nobody uses CreditCards in Europe

WTF are you talking about?

Credit Cards are a part of everyday in Europe just like everywhere else. And yes, I live in Europe too.

They're talking about debit cards - I know in the UK and Germany many people do not own credit cards, certainly in the young twenties sector in the UK debit cards are the norm.

Android dabbler/developer here.

I like how google is empowering their developers with different pricing strategies. Before it was plain vanilla, either you pay, or its free. Yes you can pay for an app and within 15 minutes ask for a refund, but I have trouble sending in a rebate, I know i'll forgot within those 15 minutes.

With these extra payment options, and from what I understand, easy charging system, having someone drop a dollar on content with few clicks or even being able to implement coupons for your content/application will be greatly appreciated. =)

As a consumer, I don't like the fact that now I will have to keep track of different way each website will charge me money.

Really? If the terms are clear at the point of sale and there is one central place to review all your purchases, what's the problem? This is a huge simplification of the normal publication methods (subscribe through this company, buy from that newsstand, get an app on all of these platforms) that I don't see how this is more complex.

I personally think trying to fit every type of publication in one hole is a much worse solution.

Do you have the same trouble walking through a mall, dealing with the different pricing structures and mixture of cash & credit at stores?

I really don't think it's much different.

One Pass "also offers payments in mobile apps, in instances where the mobile OS terms permit transactions to take place outside of the app market." Nice dig.

If you read the Android Market terms of service, you'll see that you're not allowed to use any payment processor except Google Checkout. The only exception is if Google Checkout isn't available in your country.

In the blog post they say it will be "Open". What do they mean by that? Open source? Open for everyone in the world? From what I can tell in the post, it's only available in some countries, and it's also only available with Google Checkout.

I'm not saying those are bad things, just wondering what it has to do with "Open". Unless of course Google is just continuing to use it as a buzzword.

Presumably it's something like 'can be used outside of a walled payment ecosystem like the app store'

Doesn't this name clash with the Continental Airlines frequent flyer program name?

I'm sure, if this is going to court, they will have some money in the bank to pay them.

but is it worth it?

I don't know, but it's like the Apple + Cisco thing about the iPhone name.

Are people really going to confuse a frequent flyer program and a payment system?

Perhaps not right now, but Google has already shown their interest in the flight information industry with their pending $700 million bid for ITA. Its not a stretch to assume that they may use this acquisition to provide a method to search-for and purchase airline tickets using their mobile payment system.

The signup page is linking my to a generic Google help page.

And there's no demonstration of how it works in the video or in any images. It's as if some people at Google decided to react to Apple's recent bad press by putting up a web page and a blog post announcing a product without actually having built anything yet.

Would that be a bad thing? I doubt that's what they've done but it's just lean startup methodology.

While I suspect One Pass is probably quite a bit from actual use by any publisher, this press release/the video has probably been in the works ever since the rumblings about Apple's subscription plans made the rounds. While not the most honest move, it is a brilliant PR coup.

> While not the most honest move, it is a brilliant PR coup.

You misspelled vaporware.

Apple announced something they're gonna roll out in the next rev. of iOS. Google put out a press release.

Perhaps they're trying to gauge support before rallying to actually build the thing.

This smells like vapor-ware; a pure marketing move. The timing of the announcement, coming so close on the heals of the uproar about Apple's subscriptions and pricing battles with publishers, makes it look like Google is floating a trial balloon without having an actual product available.

GigaOm's report[1] links to an article that suggests Google have been planning a micropayments system for "news and media companies" since 2009: http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/google-developing-a-micropa...

[1]: http://gigaom.com/2011/02/16/google-pitches-one-pass-micropa...

I get the same "error". I think the real login is coming very soon. Maybe to much server load :-)

Try here:

http://www.google.com/landing/onepass/

Edit: Ah, same problem. Sorry.

Edit 2: It's working now, but they are only after "some partners" so I guess it's a private Beta as such at the moment.

It's not just in response to Apple, the timing is just fortuitous, O'Reilly's Tools of Change ( a publishing industry conference ) is on in New York this week and it was probably timed to coincide with that event.

I had an urge to implement something similar while ago using OpenID. Since OpenID authentication has a handshake between a content website and an identity provider, it would provide the perfect channel for handling accounting. Paying to read an article would be as simple as logging in.

It is undeniable that Google has enough gravity as an identity provider to encourage publishers to adopt such a model.

I don't really see how to get people to pay for an article sight unseen, though. Familiarity with content by known authors may be enough for some.

I bet it's killed or unpopular and neglected within four years.

This is just a micropayment system from Google? Or am I missing something?

i wonder if you can use this as a generic web application paid subscription solution like a merchant + recurly (for example).

I wonder if the customer service for OnePass payments will be as good as it is for Google Checkout.

I'm thinking of previous discussions such as:

Google Checkout Nightmare and the $126,000 phone call:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1432107

Is this sarcastic? (never used Google Checkout)

Hard to tell. Google Checkout's UX is generally very good, better than paypal, however it is simply unavailable in many (most?) countries.

EDIT: Oh he said customer service. Google's direct customer service is notoriously nonexistent.

They have support for lots of countries now: http://goo.gl/I49QQ.

I'm going to say yes. (because I sell on GC, like GC, but note their lack of ability to reach a living person there)

According to jonknee above, the payment part of OnePass is powered by Checkout.

So I'd expect that to result in a "yes"

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