Crises spawn innovation, and despite regular headlines portending doom, the 21st-century publishing industry is bubbling with new ideas made possible by digital disruptions (and the odd hand-printing tool). Some will evaporate into thin air, while others change everything. But the level of activity today in Canada and the world strongly suggests that whatever the future brings, it will arrive in the capable hands of former book publishers. Herewith, seven trends to watch.

via theglobeandmail.com

We’ve been expecting Google to launch a one-click payment system for online publishers for some time now, but today the search giant is finally unveiling One-Pass, a Google Checkout-powered service that lets publishers set their own prices and terms for their digital content.

Google One Pass allows publishers to embed a simple e-commerce functionality to content that will require readers to purchase the content for viewing. Google says that publishers have the flexibility to charge for a variety of models including, subscriptions, day passes, metered access, pay-per-article, multi-issue packages and more. Users can purchase the content once and view it anywhere using the technology. Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password, says Google.

Google One Pass also enables metered models, where a publisher can provide some content or a certain number of visits for free, but can charge frequent visitors for additional views. Publishers can also use a coupon-base system to grant access to existing subscribers. And One Pass offers payments in mobile apps (i.e. in Android apps), in instances where the mobile OS terms permit transactions to take place outside of the app market (which seems to be a direct hit at Apple’s subscription announcement yesterday).

via techcrunch.com

Technology in the future: taking the tablet 

Digital publisher Mygazines earlier this month launched Geo Targeted Campaigns, the first service for distributing tailored versions of a digital publication by region.

With geo-targeting, users receive a dedicated URL and a targeted version of the publication loads according to their geographical area. For example, someone in San Francisco will see a different publication than someone in New York, all using the same link.

Randy Frisch is the CMO for Mygazines:

For publishers, marketers and advertisers, this feature represents new revenue opportunities and the ability to tailor content to key audiences by geographic region.  For example, if a publisher distributes its content through five countries, local advertisers would be able to buy and display content in the areas that they are interested in. In this case, readers will get the same editorial content but would interact with different ads. At the same time, there is also flexibility to tailor the content for every region.”

Toronto-based Mygazines empowers publishers, professionals and corporations with the tools to produce, distribute and track their content on any web enabled device.

Rather than exploit the multimedia potential of an app book, Mr. Elliott said he wanted to include tools that cater to a special group: Stephen Elliott readers.

“As an author, I want you to have the best experience,” he said. “People want to talk about the books they are reading with other people. Why, with everything we know, wouldn’t you include a chat room with your e-book?”

John Gapper returns to the subject of newspaper paywalls today, saying that in the UK, Rupert Murdoch’s Times will have to appeal to a narrow elite if it is to succeed online — something Murdoch has never been comfortable doing. Going after a mass audience online is hopeless, he says, in the face of much lower-cost competitors like the Huffington Post:

Mr Murdoch’s News Corp estimates that the marginal revenue from an occasional browser is less than one tenth of a penny a year. Even Group M, the media buying agency of WPP, the advertising group, argues in a research note that the bulk of news surfers are “useless tourists” who not only pay nothing but have little advertising potential.

What Gapper is recommending to Murdoch is the have-your-cake-and-eat-it holy grail of publishing online: