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.
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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...