PerfectMarket

And they say summer is slow?

After last week’s flurry of announcements from AOL and Google, could I be blamed for starting the week expecting fewer announcements from media behemoths?

On the heels of the Google vs. DemandMedia speculation comes the news that Google has debuted a “one-click tool” to allow easy online checkouts for paid content–essentially a PayPal for the paywall.

This represents Google’s latest effort to play nice with online publishers, who have long felt that the search engine has done more harm than good for their online content. The advent of aggregator Google News, only made it worse.

Still, many, both in and out of Google’s camp, have defended the search engine because of the tremendous amount of traffic it generates for online publishers. Indeed, here at Perfect Market, we’ve long advocated that harnessing the power of the search engine can be a tremendous boon to newspapers, especially when pages are monetized effectively for search users.

Nonetheless, Google is planning to test out its new technology, named “Newspass,” at Italian publication, La Repubblica.it

According to Media Post’s Laurie Sullivan, “La Repubblica.it reports that Google has contacted publishers to test the platform. It’s an effort for Google to become partners with publishers, especially in Italy where action by antitrust authorities has flared.”

News Corp does not seem to believe in summer vacations, either. Early last week, they announced the acquisition of Skiff, and e-reader, leading to speculation about the potential for a WSJ tablet.

Now, News Corp has made a bid to purchase British Sky Broadcasting, leading the New York Times to ask, “What’s Rupert Murdoch up to?”

There’s speculation that this may be the latest effort to combat the supposed “curse” of the paywall. The e-reader, Skiff, might make it easier to get users to pay for premium News Corp content.

Eric Pfanner of the New York Times proposes, “Getting consumers to pay for news online is going to be difficult. Might it be easier if access to the Web site were bundled into a satellite television subscription?”

Google’s paywall and News Corp’s push for British Sky Broadcasting are both major pushes to make it easier for publishers to charge for content, by making it easier for people to pay for it.

It remains to be seen, however, if their efforts will change the hearts and minds of the majority of web users, who’ve come to accept free content online as something of an inalienable right.

— Lee Glandorf

On Twitter: @LeeGlandorf