The question of online media business models and the creation of solutions to charge for online news consumption is very much in the news. The search engine and online advertising giant Google has proposed to American publishers and media a system of payment for articles read online.
With this proposal, Google is responding to the call of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), which asked Google to propose ideas on business models for online media. The concept, which advertising data could be ready next year, includes both micropayments and subscriptions. In the advertising battle to attract more attention, an agency has developed a water-based guerrilla tool. It is the printer suitcase, which leaves written messages on the pavement as the guerrilla marketer passes by .
The invention is called m'ype ( mobile typewriter ). The idea for a water-based printer suitcase came to Michael Schuster of the Munich-based Schusterjungen und Hurenkinder agency while he was watching street cleaning vehicles commonly used in cities. Water makes it possible to record short-lived messages, which can be beneficial in case of problems with the municipal authorities, but they are particularly striking if coloured water is used.
The printer works with ten nozzles and can be programmed with different fonts and messages. The only thing left to do before using this tool on a mass scale would be to obtain municipal approval.
The proposed system is apparently an extension of Google's Checkout payment service , which is intended to compete with offerings such as PayPal's.