Google shutters One Pass, its paid content platform

Google has closed down One Pass, the paid content platform that it rolled out in February 2011 and revamped in February 2012.

On the Google Blog, the company writes:

One Pass, our payment platform for online news publishers, has been shut down. We are working with existing partners to make the transition from One Pass to other platforms, including Google Consumer Surveys. While One Pass is going away, we will continue working with publishers to build new tools.

Only a few newspapers, like the Richmond Times Dispatch and Southeast Missourian, ever signed up to use One Pass.

Google Consumer Surveys, unveiled last month, lets publishers monetize content by enacting a "paywall substitute" that gives readers the choice of taking a microsurvey in order to read an article.

In the same post, Google announced that it is closing the Google Related toolbar, Google Patent Search (which will be folded into regular Google search) and some other small programs.