Google's Micropayment System - towards micro-negotiations using the Platform

Google is planning to launch a micropayment service Newspass that will provide customers with a unified pay as you go mechanism for web media, acccording to La Repubblica. Ultimately, a smart micropayment service will be the key component of the Platform. Whenever someone clicks on a link, the Platform would instantly provide "micro-negotiations" between the user's Platform Cell and the web site, negotiating the payment, different discounts based on the customer's marketing profile within the Platform, and other special offers. In most cases, the negotiations will be handled automatically, the user will only need to confirm his agreement in non-standard situations such as excessively high price, additional binding conditions, and special offers.

The same micro-negotiations mechanism coordinated across real life and the Web will be facilitated by the Platform for the mobile phone users. It would help customers negotiate discounts at restaurants they are passing buy, pay for bus transit, or get special offers from the fashion outlets: all done mostly automatically.

Apparently, with Newspass service, Google is addressing the tactical problem of its falling market share in news search. Strategically, the service will help revive the struggling news industry. On yet another strategic level, the importance of Newspass for Google is that it's a step towards "micro-negotiations" component of the Platform.

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