Called ‘PayPal for digital goods,’ the new payment service from PayPal is going to shake up the idea of micropayments across the internet, especially in regards to granular content monetization.
PayPal for digital goods will charge a mere 5 cent base fee and 5% cut for payments under $12, a rate which PayPal calls “lower than the fees typically charged by payment processors in the digital goods industry.”
The company sees this sort of micropayment equivalent to “dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a newspaper or play a video game,” and that by launching this new product the company will be “solv[ing] a key problem for the digital goods industry by offering a faster, safer and more cost-effective way to send and receive micropayments globally.”
PayPal has numerous partners on board to use the product including Facebook, FT.com, AutoSport.com, GigaOm, Tagged, and UStream. The system is an “in-context, frictionless payment solution that lets consumers pay for digital goods and content in as little as two clicks, without ever having to leave a publisher’s game, news, music, video or media site,” the company said.
With the ability to accept payments of any size at what can only be called razor thin rates, PayPal is opening a real door to the purchases under and around a dollar executed in just a few seconds. This will fundamentally change the equations of content monetization. Expect many of your favorite publications to begin to charge in new ways once this service is in general use.
At this moment PayPal is planning roll out this micropayment solution “late fall this year.” How are you going to use it?
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