Google dumps publisher payment platform

The One Pass payment platform for Internet news websites was shut down as Google continued house cleaning launched when co-founder Larry Page took charge last year. One Pass, which failed to catch on since it launched in February of 2011, was swept out with Google Talk free voice or text conversation Web applications for smartphones other than Android-powered handsets with the software built in. "Over the last six months we've done a lot of spring cleaning -- although it's all happened out of season," cloud services director Matthias Schwab said in a blog post at the California-based company's website, on Friday. "Spring has now arrived and we're ready to close or combine another round of products." One Pass let publishers set prices for online articles, with Google getting a 10 percent cut of revenue as opposed to the 30 percent bite that iPhone and iPad maker Apple takes out of transactions in gadget applications. One Pass features, and users, were being shifted to a Google Consumer Surveys service, according to Schwab. Page has made it a priority to get rid of products that are performing poorly so resources can be focused on more promising offerings. The latest house cleaning included moving an online service providing maps to where flu vaccinations are available in the United States being moved to HealthMap Flu Vaccine Finder. Support for Google Sync for Blackberry smartphones was eliminated. A Patent Search homepage devoted to intellectual property registered with US regulators was being re-directed to the main query engine at google.com. "The new experience loads twice as fast as the old Patent Search homepage, contributes to a unified search experience across Google, and sports Google Doodles as well," Schwab said. "The team looks forward to including patents from other countries soon, and will be rolling out additional features to Patent Search on google.com in the future."