Google’s new crowdfunding, publisher-friendly service kills ads
Putting power in the hands of the consumers to choose the ads they want to see is an area of focus for most technology-led media owners. After an announcement from Facebook, and the numerous initiatives that the likes of Google have undertaken towards ad blocking, Google has now devised a new way that not only blocks Google ads on participating websites but also generates monies for these publishers. The new offer, Google Contributor, is designed to allow people to pay a monthly fee for the sites they visit, and in return see no Google ads when they visit those sites.
Google has rolled this for the publishers in the United States only in the launch phase. The tech giant will extend this to other markets after some learnings from the initial experience and observing whether people use such a service.
Google says that this is one more of its attempts to help web publishers and content companies monetise their readership more easily. The new feature is launching with 10 publishing partners. When users goes to the Google Contributor website, which at present is by invitation only, they see a list of publishers that are participating in the beta version and they can choose whether they want to contribute USD 1, USD 2 or USD 3 a month.
The contribution doesn’t go to all of the participating websites, but is triggered only when the user visits a specific site. That way onliners will support only the publishers whose sites they visit frequently.
The search giant will take a cut of the proceeds but essentially Google Contributor is an alternative to Google AdSense.
