As part of its (evil?) plan to dominate the mobile space and rival Apple along the way, Google opened its own digital content store called Google One Pass, allowing publishers to “maintain direct relationships with their customers.” At the same time, readers will be able to access the content they’ve purchased on a number of devices such as smartphones, tablets and websites using a single sign-on with email and password.
Publishers on their end can identify existing subscribers so that readers don’t have to re-subscribe when accessing the content from a different device.
Google One Pass is available for publishers in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. It’s made to compete with Apple’s recently launched subscription service, which takes a 30% cut from publishers. Many in the media industry think that Apple is taking an excessive cut, but it’s likely that Cupertino folks care little about what publishers think. Let’s face it – the AppStore has tremendous traffic with more than 160 million iOS devices connecting regularly to download apps, music, games and other stuff…
[Via: DailyFinance]