Google's Newspass, another salvo in the battle for paid-for content domination

2 Jul 2010

The web's been in a flap over stories about Google's new paywall initiative, Newspass, set to launch later this year. The Internet megalith believes it may just have found the answer to news companies' prayers. Local media and web experts are less convinced.

Italian newspaper La Republica had geeks around the globe in a spin and piqued the interest of the world's media when it announced that Google was in beta phase with developing a content payment system for publishers called Newspass.

For days Google didn't acknowledge the report, but a spokesperson did tell the New York Times, "We've consistently said we're talking with news publishers about ways we can work together, including whether we can help them with technology to power any subscription services they may be thinking of building."

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Source: Daily Maverick

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Mandy de Waal

About Mandy de Waal: @mandyldewaal

Editor, writer and researcher. *Editor of #TheFutureByDesign & The Africa Annual *Published in Africa's Greatest Entrepreneurs *Published in Rolling Stone Magazine, The Guardian (UK), Daily Maverick, Finweek, Mail & Guardian, City Press, Rapport, Moneyweb, Noseweek; Brainstorm Magazine; ITWeb, and MarkLives. *Before becoming a full time writer, de Waal founded brand agency Idea Engineers, and led the Cape Town office of Text 100.